Earwig Academic included in Government report on special needs assessment

Earwig Academic, part of the EDUCATE programme’s cohort 4 intake, has been mentioned in a Department for Education (DfE) report into the future of assessment of pupils with special needs and disabilities.

The report, Piloting the 7 aspects of engagement for summative assessment: qualitative evaluation, published in November, is an evaluation of the findings of a pilot designed to explore the use of the 7 aspects of engagement approach as a method of summative assessment for pupils not engaged in subject-specific learning.

Ministers want to roll out a new approach to assessing pupils with complex needs from 2020, which will focus on their abilities in special areas such as awareness, curiosity and anticipation.

Earwig Academic, a tool for teachers to record, track and assess pupils, particularly children with special needs, is mentioned as one of the on-line platforms used by some of the pilot school to monitor pupil progress and outcomes using their chosen assessment methods.

Earwig offers teachers a granular and flexible way of keeping records and is suitable for using wide variants that may be necessary for some pupils. It allows teachers to input data easily, including information about the specific curriculum they are using, so they can benchmark pupils against what they are achieving, and customise it for any individual child’s needs.

Peter Gelardi, Earwig Academic’s CEO, said: ‘The DfE’s requirements for the on-going assessment of special needs children has become much more comprehensive in recent years and the software designed for this purpose ten or fifteen years ago simply can’t provide schools with what they need.

“That is why the DfE is pleased to see the arrival of new packages like Earwig, which break the mould and provide schools with a way to improve their teaching and, therefore, outcomes for pupils, without adding to staff workload.”