Using Groups in Essential Assessment

Overview

Essential Assessment offers two ways to group students:

1. Creating groups within the class list – Groups sit directly under the main class dashboard
2. Using the dedicated grouping function – Groups sit under an individual teacher’s name, separate from permanent class assignments.

Both approaches allow for targeted instruction, but they differ in flexibility, management, and technical considerations.

Creating Groups within the class list

When you create groups directly under a class in the class list, students’ data can be seen in their class and any other class/ group to which they are tagged to be part of. The benefit is that a teacher’s own assigned classes always appear at the top of the list when the teacher has selected their name in the Class Profile tab. Students can then be tagged to be part of another group as long as it appears in the class list ( Add a class/group as required.)  

The Edit/Add tab is where you can add students to the class and choose students from any class to be part of a class group that has been created. Using the +icon, students can be selected, and then they will appear in this class group, as well as the original class they belong to. 

• Tap the +icon to choose the students you would like to be in the class group.
• Once students are chosen, Tap the X to exit and those students will now appear in the class list.

However, there’s an important limitation: if a student is in more than one class, the assessment options (e.g., whether “dynamic” is on or off) must be identical in all classes they belong to. If these settings differ, the student’s access defaults to the most permissive option. This requires careful coordination to maintain consistency.

Students can be also removed from a class group at any time by accessing the Edit/Add tab and choosing EDIT. In edit mode you can tap the +icon next to a student’s name and see the classes they are tagged to. By unticking one of these classes, it will remove them from the group. Please ensure they are ticked to stay in their main ‘home’ group and then you must choose SAVE to finalise this change.

Dedicated grouping function

The dedicated grouping function (found on the far left) is designed for fluid, temporary groups, perfect for short-term units of work such as maths or English groups based on assessment results. Students remain in their home class for core records, and deleting a group does not delete the student’s data because it is mirrored from their home class.

Key benefits:

• Fluidity: Quickly create, edit, or delete groups without affecting home class data.
• Targeted instruction: Identify each group’s zone of proximal development and address misconceptions by reviewing misunderstood content and questions.
• Individualised learning: Create personalised learning plans for students directly from the group view.
• Focused activity management: Assign and reassign “My Literacy” or “My Numeracy” activities for the group, unsetting and systematically reassigning tasks to match current objectives.

Limitations:

• Students in multiple groups/classes still require identical assessment option settings across all their memberships.
• The grouping function is older and can occasionally experience glitches, though these are typically fixed promptly when reported.

How to create a Group in Essential Assessment

1. Select the Group Tab  and Click the plus (+) icon
2. Create a name for the group
3. Tap the  plus (+) icon to search for the data required to create the group.
4. Choose the drop-downs to select a Strand and Sub-strand.
5. Select the grade level/s that were assessed.
6. Define the score range for the students to include. ( Choose the levels to include a wider range than may be needed as you can always remove students from the group but you can not add once the group has been created without starting again.)
7. Select the classes from which these students come.
8. Navigate back to Groups to see your new group. If it doesn’t appear, refresh the page.

How to modify a Group

1. Once the group has been created,  tap on A.S.R/ C.R
2. At the top right (under the data ball), tap Modify Group.
3. Remove any students who should not be in the group by sliding OFF.
4. Refresh by navigating out of and back into Groups.

5. Use Pre-collate and Sort (for pre-assessments) or Post-collate and Sort (for post-assessments) to organise the group.