Importing primary phase predicted results (optional)

Predicted outcomes loading is covered in more detail in this help centre section. What follows is a short summary.

What are predicted results?

Predicted results are a way for a primary school to load estimates of what pupils will achieve in advance of the results files being published in order to see provisional reports in Nova. They can also be used in instances where the official assessments are cancelled, as happened in 2020 and 2021. They are entirely optional and will only be used by LA opting to make the facility available to their schools and where the school wishes to do so. The benefit for schools is that Nexus / Perspective Lite can take on the work of analysing results rather than it being done in each school.

Inevitably it is highly unlikely that there will ever be a high proportion of national schools and LA participating in any given year and this has obvious implications for the emerging national results for predicted outcomes datasets. However if large proportion of the schools in your LA participate this will mean that the local comparison may be robust enough to provide schools with a benchmark. LAs will wish to ensure that their participating schools understand the limitations of the emerging national, regional and local authority results. 

Preparing data for predicted results

Unlike other results files, primary predicted results are usually entered on a spreadsheet template rather than extracted from the school's MIS.

Schools can still submit a CTF XML file - as they do for statutory assessment results - where their MIS is configured to generate this. However this may not be the case for schools with a KS2 cohort (since teacher assessment of Maths and Reading is no longer included for many MIS at that Key Stage.) For this reason LA will wish to lean on the spreadsheet solution with the possibility of some schools using a CTF.

The rest of this article assumes that your schools will need to use the spreadsheet template. You will need to download the current year's spreadsheet template from the import page and share it with your participating schools.

Some LA may opt to pre-populate it with census data to save schools time and reduce the likelihood of import errors. The file must be saved as .xls (Excel 97–2003) and with macros enabled. Schools should then complete the template using teacher assessment grades for EYFS, KS1 and KS2, and Phonics outcomes. (Schools/LA can decide which assessments they wish to participate in/offer based on local priorities - not every assessment needs to be submitted by a school).

Schools do not need to complete all tabs - they can pick and choose which assessments to submit - and on the Phonics tab schools may choose to complete the Wt/Wa field only and not the score or to complete both. (For the foreseeable future the threshold for passing is likely to remain 32 points unless the DfE make a change to a statutory Phonics collection threshold) 

Tabs for assessments that LA are not offering to provide analysis on should be hidden so they remain in the sheet but are not visible to cause queries from schools. Do not delete sheets from the workbook.

LA will also wish to document the process for schools in completing the spreadsheet and returning it via a secure method. Template sets of instructions are available in the Primary Predicted Outcomes import article.

Once schools have completed the template, including their details on the Information tab, they should use the Export button on the Information tab to generate a set of CSV files (one for each year group completed) to send to the LA. They should not use Excel's "Save as ... CSV" function as this will not generate files in the correct format. The files must not be renamed from the generated filename by the school.

Preparing data for predicted results

When you have received files from schools to import, go to Keypas > Imports > Import new file and select "Predicted outcomes".

You can upload multiple files for a single assessment (e.g. KS2, KS1 etc) group each time. 

Check that the correct results year is showing, and select the year group you are uploading. If you are happy to share the results of any children who are in your schools and Looked After by another local authority with that LA, which we encourage you to do, then tick the box marked "Allow LA corporate parent to access looked after pupil data". (This will populate their Virtual School reports, but the results will not be available to anyone in their LA who does not have permissions for Virtual School data. They will still be shown in your school's reports as normal.)

You can add files either by clicking the Add related files button or by dragging them onto the "drop your files here" frame. If you have a large number of files then it may be quicker to ZIP them into a single file first (it does not matter what the ZIP file is named as long as all the files contained in the zip are correctly named as generated by the spreadsheet template), and then when you have added all the files for that year group, click Upload.

The system will then verify that the files are in the expected format, and will then return you to the import queue, where you can see when the files have been imported and check that they have done so without errors. Click Import new file to repeat the process with another year group (you can do this while your previous upload is still waiting in the import queue up to a maximum of three queued/importing batches).