Covid-19 and CEM Assessments

Yes you can - just log in to your Secondary+ or Alis+ secure account for results upload guidance.

If you are uploading previous years’ exam results data, please also contact our customer support team (CEM@cambridge.org) before you do so, so that we can make sure that everything runs smoothly for you.

Yes. CEM products will use the grades awarded to students this year to calculate value-added progress measures.

No. We do not recommend that you attempt to assess students remotely.

The aim of a baseline assessment is to get an objective picture of a student’s skills in the core areas of vocabulary, maths and non-verbal skills (such as proofreading).

The information you get from our baseline assessments will only be a true reflection of a student’s abilities if the student does not receive any help when taking it. As it is extremely difficult to monitor the environment of the assessment remotely, we cannot guarantee the results would be an accurate reflection of their skills.

We appreciate that many schools will not be able to assess students at this time. It may be possible to extend your testing window for the 2019/20 assessments so that your students may sit the assessment when your school reopens.

If you require an extension please contact our team: CEM@cambridge.org.

We appreciate that many schools will not be able to assess students at this time. It may be possible to extend your testing window for the 2019/20 assessments so that your students may sit the assessment when your school reopens.

If you want to discuss your options further, please contact our team: CEM@cambridge.org.

We have opened the testing windows early for Aspects, BASE and PIPS so that you may assess as many of your students possible while your school remains open.

You may wish to assess your students with InCAS while you are still open, if you have not already done so.

If you cannot use your primary assessments before your school closes, the testing window can be extended. Please email us on CEM@cambridge.org.

The testing windows for the 2019/20 MidYIS, Yellis and Alis assessments can be extended. Please email us on CEM@cambridge.org if you need an extension.

There is no direct impact expected on the standardisations if you opt to assess your students a couple of months earlier or later than expected.

If you would normally assess students in the early testing window, for 2020/21 assessments you will be able to assess your students as soon as you return to school.

We are opening the testing window for the BASE end of year assessment early so that you may assess as many of your students as possible while your school remains open.

If your school has closed before you are able to assess your students, please contact us on CEM@cambridge.org.

We are not planning to change the content of our admissions tests in light of the COVID-19 situation. Our assessments aim to measure underlying skills and aptitudes and are designed to be taken by learners with a wide range of ability. We are confident that our assessments will continue to be effective at differentiating learners, even in light of a gap in schooling. Developing new tests or making significant changes to the existing ones introduces considerably more risk. We would not be able to gather sufficient evidence to assure the quality of the new or revised assessment for differentiating learner ability.

If you wish to extend the use of the assessments past July and conduct them when your school reopens, please let us know by emailing CEM-EAOps@cambridge.org. If your school has not yet closed, please consider allowing your potential intake to sit the test as soon as possible.

We are working closely with our Entrance Assessment customers to look at next steps as the situation develops.

If you are an Entrance Assessment customer please email us in CEM-EAOps@cambridge.org.

Our digital entrance tests are designed to be sat by candidates in a secure location on the contracted party’s computers. The reasons for this are:

1. Schools can manage who is sitting the test
2. It minimises the risk that the test and its content could be compromised

Due to the high stakes nature of entrance tests we don’t currently support using CEM Select remotely from home. If you have any questions or would like to discuss your options with us, please email us at CEM-EAOps@cambridge.org.

Value-added will be calculated as usual this year despite the unusual circumstances. Schools can upload their official grades in the same way as in previous years.

We expect that value-added may appear higher this year, due to the use of teacher-awarded results, and this should be taken into account when target setting or analysing longer-term trends in your data.

If you wish to change the data you have already uploaded, (for example to use teacher data), this can be uploaded in the usual way. Any re-upload of data, either whole cohort or single pupil, will overwrite the previous results so if you wish to have a comparison should download the original results before uploading any new data.

Due to the unusual way that exam grades have been awarded in 2020, we will not use the 2020 results to update the regression lines we use for our predictions and value-added. Instead we will continue to use the regression lines based on exam results from 2019. In particular the value-added in 2021 will, like this year, be based on the regression lines from 2019.

For this summer’s awards, schools and colleges are being asked to provide centre assessment grades for their students. You can find the official guidance from Ofqual.

At this stage we do not anticipate that there will be a significant impact on the standardisations if you opt to assess your students slightly earlier or later than expected.