| Question | Answer |
| What is a standardized assessment? | Assessments that are standardized for framework, administration, and marking to ensure valid, reliable, and fair results. |
| What does “endorsed and certificated by the University” actually mean? | The quality and reliability of the tests is aligned with the standards and expectations of the University of Oxford, a world-leading institution. Students will also receive a certificate signed by the University, which is recognized and respected globally. |
| Why is endorsement from the University not expected until 2026? | At this time, we are working towards standardization. We expect to achieve the required number of test takers and results data for this in the March-May 2025 test window. |
| What is assessed? | The tests focus on the content of the Oxford International Curriculum covered in Year 6 (end of primary) and Year 9 (end of lower secondary) respectively. They are available for maths, science, English, and ESL. |
| How will I know when our school’s results are ready? | You will receive an email from us once the results are available. This email will include instructions for accessing the results and certificate. |
| What do the reports show? | Visit the results page for more information. https://support.oisa.oup.com/ teacher-support/reporting/results |
| Will the students receive certificates? | You will be able to download individual student certificates to share with your students digitally. We do not send physical copies but if you wish to print them then you are welcome to do so. |
| Will there be a certificate for each subject or one for all subjects (if more than one is taken) | Students taking more than one subject get one certificate that holds scores from all their subjects, all in one place. Certificates can be exported in bulk at Class level for ease of use (or one at a time). |
| When will certificates be available? | Both reports and certificates will be available at the same time. For this early access phase, this will be 15 July. |
| Can we see how a test-taker answered a particular question? | To preserve the integrity of the test for future sessions, test-taker responses are not available. |
| Can we see scores for individual questions or for the test papers that make up each subject? | We do not publish question-level or test-level scores, to preserve the integrity of the assessment for future sessions. The Oxford International Standardized Assessments report holistically on attainment at the subject, domain, and subdomain levels. Each domain is assessed across the several tests that make up each subject, so it is not possible to report meaningful results at test level. |
| What are the score thresholds for each of the subdomain performance bands? | Across the various subdomains, different raw scores equate to the same performance band, This is because, in order to cover curriculum learning objectives, certain subdomains may be represented by greater numbers of questions than others, meaning a comparison of scores between subdomains may be misleading. As such, instead of publishing score thresholds, we map all scores proportionally to the performance bands. Threshold proportions may vary between subdomains and year by year, depending on the relative difficulty of the tests. |
| Why do I not have scores for this student? | Results are available where a set of responses was submitted for all of the mandatory tests that comprise a subject. If a student did not submit one or more of the mandatory tests in a subject, they will receive no results, even if they did submit one or more of the other mandatory tests. |
| Why might a student’s results be lower than expected? | If a test-taker did not complete all questions on a test, or submitted a blank response on one of the tests in the subject, the test-taker will still receive results, but may attain a lower standardized score relative to the rest of the cohort. During this year’s assessment window (March-May 2025), test attempts that were not actively submitted at the end of a test session were included in results if there was evidence that any time had been spent on the test by the student. As such, for example, a student who opened a test but did not answer any questions will have received a raw score of zero for that test, which will affect their overall standardized score for the subject and the domains assessed on the test. |
| What is different about the 2025 tests compared to future years? | This year’s tests contained slightly more questions than will feature in the tests that will be offered in future years. Each year a portion of the test content will be updated to protect the integrity of the assessment, while carefully ensuring the difficulty remains comparable to the benchmarking data we use to support rapid results return. The standardization scale will be updated to reflect changes in the test content, such that test-takers are not compared unfairly to a benchmarking cohort who answered more questions. |
| Where are the scores for familiarization tests? | Familiarization tests are intended solely to allow schools and test-takers to experience the platform. Results are not returned for these tests. |
| Why are all/some of my students in a class named Year 6 of Year 9? | If a student was imported with no class data they have been placed into a class for their relevant year group determined by the assessments they were enrolled into. |
| Why does the date range of when our assessments took place not align with when assessments actually happened? | In some cases, students left test attempts open and did not submit them during the test session. When this happens, the latest date shown in the range reflects when we manually submitted the most recent attempt for that year, class, or student. |
| You mention suspicion of malpractice – what does that mean and what steps are you taking to protect the integrity of these assessments? Will it affect the standardization? | We are strengthening our guidance on malpractice in response to detected patterns suggesting improper behaviour such as the use of AI, excessive time on tests, or copying, in a small minority of test attempts. This guidance will be made available on the support site and in the User Guide, in advance of the 2026 test window. As the Oxford International Standardized Assessments are primarily intended to provide schools with accurate information on students’ attainment, malpractice limits the value of results to schools in which it occurs. We have screened this year’s tests to exclude from our standardization dataset candidate answers where there is evidence of likely malpractice. In future assessments, students will be asked to state that they have not used AI or model answers, or engaged in other forms of malpractice. Where teachers cannot confirm that this statement is true, scores of zero may be awarded. Automated test timing may also be introduced. |