Personalised assessments
Guidance on how to access and administer personalised assessments to help learners progress.
The personalised assessments information and resources are also available on the personalised assessments system. School and local authority staff may access the system if they have a Hwb login.
Purpose of personalised assessments
The National Reading and Numeracy Personalised Assessments are formative. They help learners progress through understanding:
- what they can do
- what they need to work on
- their next steps
The assessments are mandatory and taken by all learners in Years 2 to 9 in maintained schools in Wales. They are taken online and assess each learner’s progress individually. Questions are adaptive and are selected based on the learner’s response to the previous question. If a learner answers a question incorrectly, they will get an easier question. If a learner answers a question correctly, they will get a more challenging question.
This provides an individual assessment experience and tailors the level of challenge for every learner.
Teachers can use the information from the personalised assessments (including individual learner feedback and progress reports, as well as group reports) alongside what they know about their learners’ reading and numeracy from their work in the classroom. It will help them plan their learners’ next steps.
Accessing personalised assessments
Access to the personalised assessment website is available to head teachers, teachers and learners (in maintained schools in Wales) via their Hwb logins.
Head teachers decide which of their staff members have access to assessments and reports. The assessment site is not ordinarily available to individuals who do not appear on a school’s MIS.
Local authority staff support schools with personalised assessments and share best practice. A ‘Training’ school is available so they can view the personalised assessments system. A limited number of logins are available. Contact the personalised assessments helpdesk for more information (see ‘Contact us’).
Administration handbook
The administration handbook sets out the arrangements for the personalised assessments.
Refer to the handbook for information on:
- purpose of national personalised assessments
- requirements for each academic year
- timing of personalised assessments
- access to personalised assessments
- head teacher agreement and user management
- scheduling and taking assessments
- assessment feedback and reports
- modifications and disapplication
User guide
The Personalised assessments: user guide 2025 to 2026 sets out the processes for administering the personalised assessments.
Refer to the user guide for information on:
- how the personalised assessments work
- IT requirements and set up
- conditions for administering assessments
- personnel administering assessments
- accessing and interpreting reports
- accessing modified versions of assessments
The guide includes an annex on management of assessments for learners dual-registered in schools and PRUs. The user guide can be accessed in the ‘Help’ section of the personalised assessments website.
‘How to’ videos
The following instructional videos give step-by-step guidance to school staff for each stage of scheduling and administering the assessments and accessing reports.
Further information
Further documents and videos are which are available:
- Video clips: views and experiences of learners, teachers and experts.
- Using personalised assessments, feedback and reports to support progression in reading and numeracy: webinars for teachers.
- Animations: introduction to Personalised Assessments and learner feedback explained.
- Information for parents and carers.
- Personalised assessments: information for parents and carers.
- The guidance for practitioners highlights some key points that may be helpful to support learning, teaching and progression planning. It also sets out which reports should be shared with parents and carers and addresses any questions they may have.
Sample questions
The personalised assessments give information on a learner’s skills in reading and numeracy. Questions presented in the assessments are taken from a large ‘bank’ of live content and therefore cannot be shared or recorded. Sample questions for the skills assessed are available:
Sample questions included in learner feedback reports: Numeracy (Procedural).
Sample questions included in learner feedback reports: Reading (English).
Sample questions included in learner feedback reports: Reading (Welsh).
A teacher feedback report is provided for Numeracy (Reasoning). The report links to Numeracy (Reasoning) sample materials which the teacher may use to help learners develop their reasoning skills.
Contact us
For support on the personalised assessments please contact:
- the Assessment Helpdesk (for schools only) on 029 2026 5099
- help@personalisedassessments.wales
For support on managing school users’ Hwb accounts please contact hwb@gov.wales or 0300 0252525.