Teacher assessment moderation: standardisation and training process
Information for local authorities on training and standardisation for moderators of key stages 2 (KS2) English writing.
What is standardisation?
Standardisation gives schools the assurance that local authoritiesā moderation teams have the required knowledge to moderate KS2 English writing teacher assessments.
It ensures:
- teacher assessment and its moderation across England is consistent and accurate
- that local authoritiesā moderators for the 2025 to 2026 academic year are familiar with theĀ 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 authorityās external KS2 moderation process.
Approval to moderate
All moderators must pass a standardisation exercise to gain the Standards and Testing Agencyās (STA) approval to moderate in the 2025 to 2026 academic year.
Moderators can choose from 3 standardisation exercises. They may attempt up to 2 exercises and must successfully complete 1 exercise to gain approval to moderate.
Changes to standardisation activities
All standardisation activity will now take place on the National Curriculum Assessments Portal (NCA Portal). This includes:
- accessing standardisation training materials
- completing standardisation exercises
- receiving standardisation results and āapproval to moderateā certificates
- accessing standardisation exercise commentaries
Setting up access to the NCA Portal
From Monday 22 September 2025, local authority users with the following roles will receive an email with instructions on how to access and log in to the NCA Portal:
- senior local authority user
- moderation manager
- deputy moderation manager
Once these users set up their accounts, they will be able to manage access for their local authority. The NCA Portal will officially open to schools and local authorities on Tuesday 23 September 2025.
Senior local authority users should ensure that all local authority staff with responsibilities relating to primary assessment have the correct access to the NCA Portal.
Moderation managers should ensure that all moderators who will participate in standardisation exercises during the 2025 to 2026 academic year have access to the NCA Portal at the appropriate time.
Completing an exercise on the NCA Portal
Each standardisation exercise will be available for completion on the NCA Portal during a specific period.
| Date | Exercise |
|---|---|
| Monday 3 November to Friday 14 November 2025 | Standardisation exercise 1 |
| Monday 5 January to Friday 16 January 2026 | Standardisation exercise 2 |
| Monday 9 February to Friday 27 February 2026 | Standardisation exercise 3 |
When each exercise becomes available on the NCA Portal, registered moderators will be automatically notified via email.
The standardisation exercises are now available online, however, local authorities should continue their usual standardisation practices. This means moderation managers are responsible for:
- coordinating moderator participation in an exercise according to local authority arrangements
- ensuring that moderators access and complete the exercises individually, under controlled conditions at a date and time the local authority specifies
Moderation managers and moderators can access the standardisation exercises by logging into the NCA Portal and navigating to the āStandardisationā page.
To complete a standardisation exercise on the NCA Portal, moderators should:
- access the exercise at a specific time and in a suitable monitored environment as instructed by their moderation manager
- start the exercise and navigate through the pupil scripts on screen
- award a standard of attainment for each pupil collection via the drop-down list
- submit their answers to complete the exercise and send for automatic marking
The system will track exercise attempts to ensure that no moderator can complete more than 2 exercises.
The standardisation exercise materials will also be available to download from the NCA Portal should local authorities wish to carry out paper-based standardisation offline. If local authorities take this approach, they should ensure individual moderators provide their responses for each pupil collection within the exercise on the NCA Portal. Otherwise, they will not receive their results or the āapproval to moderateā certificate.
Release of exercise commentaries and results
Standardisation exercise attempts will be automatically marked on the NCA Portal based on the commentaries STA provides.
There are 3 potential result outcomes which will be communicated to moderators via automatic email from the NCA Portal. Ā
| Result | Description |
|---|---|
| Successful | No further exercises required ā approved to moderate for the 2025 to 2026 academic year, moderator can download approval certificate from the NCA Portal |
| Unsuccessful | One more attempt available ā moderator was unsuccessful but can complete one further exercise on the NCA Portal |
| Unsuccessful | No further attempts allowed ā moderator was unsuccessful in two exercises |
The exercise results and commentaries will be released on a phased basis across five days:
- on the Monday after each exercise window closes, moderation managers can access the results and commentaries ā this gives them enough time to discuss outcomes with moderators before the system releases the results
- on the Wednesday after each exercise window closes, moderators can access their results and commentaries, including the āapproval to moderateā certificate, if they are successful
The commentary and results release dates for each exercise can be found below within the standardisation and training timeline.
Once the standardisation exercise window opens, local authorities will be able to access a report on the NCA Portal showing moderator participation, pass and fail rates for their area. This will help local authorities confirm whether they have recruited enough moderators for the 2025 to 2026 academic year.
Large language model pilot
STA is piloting the use of large language models to help create standardisation exercise 3 in the 2025 to 2026 academic year. Details of the pilot were communicated to moderation managers in .
The purpose of the pilot is to explore whether large language models can help overcome ongoing challenges with standardisation exercise production, including sourcing sufficient scripts from schools and reducing associated costs.
Taking part in the pilot is optional. STA will only use the materials developed with the assistance of large language models to evaluate moderatorsā understanding of the KS2 English writing teacher assessment framework.
Moderator training
The NCA Portal provides self-guided standardisation training materials for key stage 1 and KS2, with built-in guidance to help local authorities navigate them.
Additional training videos are available onĀ .
Examples of pupilsā work to support teachersā assessment of English writing at the end of KS2 are available on Teacher assessment exemplification: KS2 English writing.
We will not publish any further training or exemplification materials for the 2025 to 2026 academic year.
Local authorities can use the training materials to support their moderator training. We recommend that training is delivered to 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 |
|---|---|
| From Monday 22 September 2025 | Moderation managers set up NCA Portal access for all moderators who will participate in a standardisation exercise |
| Monday 3 November to Friday 14 November 2025 | Standardisation exercise 1 available to moderators on the NCA Portal for completion |
| From Monday 3 November 2025 | Report available on the NCA Portal for moderation managers to review standardisation participation rates, outcomes and approved moderators for 2025 to 2026 |
| Monday 17 November to Friday 21 November 2025 | Standardisation exercise 1 commentaries and results available on the NCA Portal for moderation managers |
| Monday 17 November to Friday 28 November 2025 | Standardisation exercise 1 moderator feedback survey available for completion on the NCA Portal |
| Wednesday 19 November to Friday 21 November 2025 | Participating moderators receive email notification to access standardisation exercise 1 commentaries and results on the NCA Portal, including the āapproval to moderateā certificate, if successful |
| Monday 5 January to Friday 16 January 2026 | Standardisation exercise 2 available on the NCA Portal for completion by all moderators who did not complete or were unsuccessful in exercise 1 |
| Monday 19 January to Friday 23 January 2026 | Standardisation exercise 2 commentaries and results available on the NCA Portal for moderation managers |
| Monday 19 January to Friday 30 January 2026 | Standardisation exercise 2 moderator feedback survey available for completion on the NCA Portal |
| Wednesday 21 January to Friday 23 January 2026 | Participating moderators receive email notification to access standardisation exercise 2 commentaries and results on the NCA Portal, including the āapproval to moderateā certificate, if successful |
| Monday 9 February to Friday 27 February 2026 | Standardisation exercise 3 available on the NCA Portal for completion by all moderators who did not complete or were unsuccessful in either exercise 1 or 2 |
| Monday 2 March to Friday 6 March 2026 | Standardisation exercise 3 commentaries and results available on the NCA Portal for moderation managers |
| Monday 2 March to Friday 13 March 2026 | Standardisation exercise 3 moderator feedback survey available for completion on the NCA Portal |
| Wednesday 4 March to Friday 6 March 2026 | Participating moderators receive email notification to access standardisation exercise 3 commentaries and results on the NCA Portal, including the āapproval to moderateā certificate, if successful |
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
-
Dates and guidance updated reflecting the digital standardisation process for the 2025 to 2026 academic year.
-
Updated for the academic year 2024 to 2025, including adding a downloadable calendar with important moderation dates for local authorities.
-
Updated for the academic year 2023 to 2024.
-
Updated for the 2022/23 academic year.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Edited Approval to moderate section.
-
Updated approval to moderate section to include āStandardisation 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'.
-
Added section '2021/22 moderator training material overview'.
-
Updates to standardisation and training process.
-
Amendment to standardisation and training timeline and the moderation training events section.
-
Updated for the 2020/21 academic year.
-
Changes to standardisation training event and exercise dates for the 2019/20 test cycle. Updates to allow LAs to plan for the standardisation activities.
-
Updated dates to confirm when approval to moderate letters will be issued.
-
First published.