How answers are judged

The short version

• Answers are checked by rule-based keyword and synonym matching: fixed word-matching rules that run in the browser on the child’s device.
• No AI and no person reads the answers, and nothing is sent anywhere.
• The rules look for key words and phrases (with a list of similar words for each) that a good answer is likely to contain.
• They can turn down an unusual answer that is right, and a child can sometimes pass by guessing or listing the right words.
• So the scores are a helpful guide, not a mark you can rely on alone. Please use your own judgement, especially for longer answers.

What the checker does with an answer

1. Tidies the answer: ignores capital letters and punctuation, accepts common word endings (for example “climb” and “climbed”) and allows a slip of one letter in longer words, or two in words of seven letters or more (for example “frightend” for “frightened”), as long as the first letter is right. Short words of four letters or fewer must be spelt exactly, so that one wrong letter cannot turn one word into another. When the Spelling support comfort setting is on, words spelt the way they sound are accepted too.
2. Looks for the accepted ideas: each question has one or more groups of accepted words and phrases. The answer needs something from each group. You can see every group in the marking guides.
3. Turns down copying the question: an answer that only repeats the words of the question is not accepted.
4. Asks for more when an answer is half there: if only some of the groups are found, the child is asked to add more. On Medium and Hard thinking questions (inference, summarising and, on Hard, author’s choice, structure and comparing), a one-idea answer also needs a reason or another detail from the story, and a bare list of words gets a prompt to put it into a sentence. Some questions spot a common half-answer and ask the child to add to it.
5. On Hard, checks for evidence: see below.

The Hard evidence rule

Most Hard questions ask the child to back up their answer from the story. The checker counts a “detail” as a sentence of that chapter’s text that the answer uses a word from: a word of three letters or more that is not a very common word such as “the” or “and”. A character’s name, or a word that appears all over the passage, does not point at one place on its own.

• Each Hard question needs the answer plus one or two details (the marking guide says which). Two details must come from two different sentences.
• Three or more story words from one sentence count as two details.
• Story words that are quoted in the question count too.
• “Because” or another linking word is welcome, but it is not needed once the evidence is there.
• In Years 3 and 4, on Medium and Hard thinking questions, quoting the question’s words from the story also counts as the reason for a one-idea answer.

This rule checks that story words are present. It cannot tell whether the detail really supports the answer, so a child can sometimes pass by adding story words that do not help. That is another place to use your judgement.

What it cannot do

• It does not understand meaning. A sensible answer that uses words we did not expect can be turned down; the child then gets a clue and can try again, so it shows as “with a clue” rather than “first time”.
• It can be gamed. Typing likely words, or a mix of them with story words, can sometimes pass.
• It does not judge spelling, handwriting, grammar or how well an answer is written.
• Open questions (for example, predictions) accept a wide range of ideas, so a pass there says little about quality.

Using the results well

• Read the children’s actual answers where you can, or ask them to explain an answer aloud.
• Use the paper tasks for answers you mark yourself, with the marking key as a starting point rather than a strict list.
• Treat the reading-skill stars on the class summary as a prompt for a conversation, not as an assessment.
• The skills are mapped to the KS2 reading content domains (STA test framework); the mapping is our own. See the curriculum map.