Teacher assessment moderation: standardisation and training process
Information for local authorities on training and standardisation for moderators of key stages 2 (KS2) English writing.
Standardisation provides schools with assurance that local authorities’ moderation teams have the required knowledge to complete moderation of KS2 English writing teacher assessment.
It ensures:
- the consistency and accuracy of teacher assessment and its moderation across England
- that local authorities’ moderators for the academic year 2024 to 2025 are familiar with the KS2 English writing framework
Each year, local authorities are required to moderate at least 25% of maintained schools and 25% of academies and participating independent schools that have opted into the local authority’s external KS2 moderation process.
Approval to moderate
All moderators who wish to undertake moderation activities in the academic year 2024 to 2025 must pass a standardisation exercise to gain the Standards and Testing Agency’s (STA) approval to moderate.
There are 3 exercises in total and each moderator is allowed a maximum of 2 attempts across the 3 exercises to pass.
Moderator training
Self-guided training materials are available on the Primary Assessment Gateway (PAG). They have not changed since last year, but to help you work with them we have published a training contents page and historic key stage 1 and KS2 training materials on the PAG.
Additional training videos are available on STA’s YouTube playlist.
We will not publish any further training materials for the academic year 2024 to 2025.
Local authorities can use the training materials to support their moderator training. We recommend that local authorities deliver training to their moderators before they complete the standardisation exercise, preferably on separate days.
Standardisation and training timeline
To add a full list of all important dates for local authorities relating to teacher assessment to your calendar, you can download the .
| Dates | Activities |
|---|---|
| Monday 4 November to Friday 15 November 2024 | Standardisation exercise 1 available to all moderators |
| Monday 4 November to Friday 15 November 2024 | Moderation managers to return their responses from exercise 1 to STA for marking |
| Monday 18 November 2024 | Standardisation exercise 1 commentaries available on the PAG |
| Monday 18 November to Friday 22 November 2024 | Moderation managers to mark pool and lead moderators’ responses from exercise 1 and submit completion numbers to STA |
| Monday 6 January to Friday 17 January 2025 | Standardisation exercise 2 available to all moderators who did not complete or were unsuccessful in exercise 1 |
| Monday 6 January to Friday 17 January 2025 | Moderation managers to return their responses from exercise 2 to STA for marking |
| Monday 20 January 2025 | Standardisation exercise 2 commentaries available on the PAG |
| Monday 20 January to Friday 24 January 2025 | Moderation managers to mark pool and lead moderators’ responses from exercise 2 and submit completion numbers to STA |
| Monday 10 February to Friday 21 February 2025 | Standardisation exercise 3 available to all moderators who did not complete or were unsuccessful in either exercise 1 or 2 (not both) |
| Monday 10 February to Friday 21 February 2025 | Moderation managers to return their responses from exercise 3 to STA for marking |
| Monday 24 February 2025 | Standardisation exercise 3 commentaries available on the PAG |
| Monday 24 February to Friday 28 February 2025 | Moderation managers to mark pool and lead moderators’ responses from exercise 3 and submit completion numbers to STA |
| Monday 24 February to Friday 7 March 2025 | Moderation managers to submit names of all moderators who passed standardisation across the 3 exercises to STA |
| Monday 17 March 2025 | STA to share blank KS2 ‘approval to moderate’ certificates with local authorities for the academic year 2024 to 2025 |
Contact us
If you have questions about local authority moderation or moderator training and standardisation, you can call the national curriculum assessments helpline on 0300 303 3013.
Updates to this page
Published 7 September 2018Last updated 2 September 2024 + show all updates
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Updated for the academic year 2024 to 2025, including adding a downloadable calendar with important moderation dates for local authorities.
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Updated for the academic year 2023 to 2024.
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Updated for the 2022/23 academic year.
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Section -- Approval to moderate - change of wording on standardisation exercise attempts - The second paragraph, last sentence has been changed to read as follows: Following feedback we have agreed, for this year, that moderators who were unsuccessful in standardisation exercise 1 will be allowed two further attempts to complete an exercise successfully instead of one further attempt. Section -- Standardisation and training timeline -- standardisation date changes -- The closing date to complete the standardisation exercise 2 has been changed to 3 February. Section -- STA to share KS1 and KS2 to complete blank approval to moderate certificates with Las for the 2022/22 test cycle. The date has been changed to 4 April.
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The section Approval to moderate, the last paragraph has been changed to read as follows: In response to the disruption schools and LAs are facing due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, STA will continue to allow LAs to decide how they deliver the exercises. Where exercises are carried out in the same room, it is expected that all national and local restriction guidance is followed.
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Edited Approval to moderate section.
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Updated approval to moderate section to include ‘Standardisation exercises should be completed in a central location, supervised by the LA moderation manager, or strategic lead in the case that a moderation manager is completing the exercise. This is to maintain the integrity of the exercise. Moderators should complete the exercise individually, without discussing the pupil collections'.
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Added section '2021/22 moderator training material overview'.
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Updates to standardisation and training process.
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Amendment to standardisation and training timeline and the moderation training events section.
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Updated for the 2020/21 academic year.
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Changes to standardisation training event and exercise dates for the 2019/20 test cycle. Updates to allow LAs to plan for the standardisation activities.
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Updated dates to confirm when approval to moderate letters will be issued.
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First published.