What happens on the day?

Key points

  • The survey should take approximately 20-30 minutes: 5-10 minutes for instructions and overview, 15-20 minutes to answer the questions 
  • Each student will need a computer/laptop with access to the internet, headphones and a mouse (if needed)
  • Ensure that all students are working their way through the survey on their own and that there is no talking or opportunity to copy from another's answers. 
  • Make sure to check minimum system requirements compatibility 

Important

Please remember to complete the Year group column as shown below. If you do not insert Y, P or S before the number of the year group, as appropriate, the reports will be generated on the basis of an individual’s date of birth rather than their school year group. 

When importing pupils for PASS the Year column must be used. See example. 

C

Primary

Secondary

England

Y#

Y#

Scotland

P#

S#

A – Ireland 

P#

Y#

ROI 

Y#

Y#

International 

Y#

Y#

 

Setting up

  • Make sure the survey room is comfortable 
  • Try to forestall any interruption of the survey session by visitors or announcements. This could be done by simply placing a notice on the door to the survey room so that other members of the school who are not participating in the survey are aware it is taking place, for example, ‘survey – do not disturb’.
  • Ensure computers are set up in advance if your students are young or in need of help with this. In which case, it is advisable that a single password is used of the password requirement is ignored. 

Survey timings

PASS consists of 50 statements with 4 possible responses or 27 statements with 2 possible responses.

The survey times, with an approximation of the time needed for pre-survey instructions, are given in the table below.

PASS online Survey time Approximate time needed for instructions and overview Approximate length of survey session
50 (or 27) statements 15-20 minutes 5-10 minutes 20-30 minutes
Students are required to provide one response for each statement and cannot complete the survey until all the statements have been responded to. If a statement is missed, the student will not be able to move on to the next page until all the statements on that page have been completed.

Administering the digital test

Starting the test manually

To start the test manually, the Start Test button is clicked by a Testwise user within the Student Progress screen, any time after the beginning of the Test Start Period.  

Starting the test automatically

The test starts automatically at the beginning of the Test Start Period, without any user intervention. 

Once the Test Start Period has begun and the tests are started, either automatically or manually, students can log into the Test Lobby and take their test. 

Monitoring student progress during a test

While the students are taking the test, the teacher should walk around to check that they are progressing appropriately, that they are not having difficulty with the methods of answering and, importantly with digital tests, that they have not rushed through any part of the test without attempting to answer each question. 

It is possible to keep the Testwise register open on the teacher’s machine and thereby track progress through the test. The register shows real time information about whether a student is logged on, has started or completed questions, and what is ‘in progress’. 

You can view student progress for all students contained within one or more sittings. 

For each assessment, each student will have one of the following progress statuses displayed: 

  • Not Started - The student has not logged into the Test Lobby and clicked the 'Start Test' button yet. 
  • In Progress - The student has logged into the Test Lobby but not completed a full test yet. 
  • Marking - The student has completed the test and the results are being processed by the system. 
  • Completed - The student has completed the test and the results have been successfully processed and saved within the system. 
  • Failed to Finish - The student has started the test but has not completed it 

For more information see Testwise information page.   

Closing live sittings

You can close a live sitting at any time and for any number of reasons including the following: 

  • The sitting was created in error and is no longer required in the system. 
  • You do not want the credits that will be used for the sitting to be taken from your total number of credits at the current time. 
  • A sitting has started and you know that one or more of the students will not be logging into the Test Lobby to take their test(s). If you want the credits returned for these students, then you will need to close the sitting. 

Students who have started their tests will still be able to complete their tests after the sitting has been closed. 

Once you have closed a sitting you cannot view or change its details. 

Test-taking instructions for students (digital tests)

Before you begin this test, please ensure you have your Student Access Code with you, which your teacher will have given you.   

To take your online test:  

1. Ensure you have your Student Access Code with you.   

2. Open a web browser, such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.  

3. Enter www.testwise.com/code into the address bar on your web browser and press the Enter button.   

4. Enter your Student Access Code into the Access code box and click the Login button.   

Note: You do not need to enter dashes or spaces between the numbers, as these are already entered on the screen for you.   

Note: If the Student Access Code appears to be invalid, please carefully check the characters provided. The letters will always be displayed as lower case, although I (L) and 1 and O and 0 (zero) can easily be misread. See below for the generation rules for access codes:   

  • There should be an alpha character within each four-character block.   
  • Alpha characters are not case sensitive.   
  • Students can enter them in either upper or lower case, but the system will always display the alpha characters on the Testwise platform page in lower case.   
  • The alpha character should appear at a random point within each four-character block.   
  • The same number cannot appear in the same block three times (e.g. a111-b111 or c111-d222).   

The Test Lobby screen is displayed, containing all the tests that you need to complete.  

5. Click the Start test button 

6. Note: If the Start test button is not displayed, this is because the Test Start Period has not yet begun or the test has been configured as manual start. The Download status bar will be displayed while the test is downloading.  

7. Once the test has downloaded, follow the on-screen instructions until you have completed the test.  

8. To log out of the Test Lobby, click your name in the top right of the screen and select Logout from the menu. Note: If you leave the Test Lobby unattended for more than 20 minutes, you will automatically be logged out of the Test Lobby.  

9. When you have finished all tests and logged out of the Test Lobby using the Logout menu option, you can close your web browser.  

Please see Testwise: Sittings for more information.

Please see the crib sheet for digital test for invigilators.