1. Clerking Agency | Education Consultancy | Education HR | Finance Support | Governor Services | Professional Development | School Library Service | Target Tracker Essex Education Services On screen marking All tests at all levels will be marked onscreen in 2015. Pupils must use a dark pencil or a pen with blue or black ink. They must not use glitter pens or coloured pens, in particular red. These are illegible when scanned for onscreen marking.

2. Clerking Agency | Education Consultancy | Education HR | Finance Support | Governor Services | Professional Development | School Library Service | Target Tracker Essex Education Services Pupils should keep their test scripts in good condition and not fold their answer booklets. Folded or crumpled scripts don't scan clearly. When preparing pupils for the mental mathematics tests, don't teach them to fold their answer sheet.

3. Clerking Agency | Education Consultancy | Education HR | Finance Support | Governor Services | Professional Development | School Library Service | Target Tracker Essex Education Services Answer booklets will be cut and scanned for onscreen marking. When you're preparing pupils for the tests encourage them to write their answers in the space provided. Responses in the margins or the grey zone will not be marked. Pupils can use any other white space to do their working out in the mathematics tests.

4. Clerking Agency | Education Consultancy | Education HR | Finance Support | Governor Services | Professional Development | School Library Service | Target Tracker Essex Education Services The answer booklets include barcodes so each page of a test script is associated with the right pupil. Pupils must not colour in or write on the barcodes. They must not write on or around the lines at the top and bottom of a page. You may still photocopy test papers onto coloured paper if this is normal classroom practice. You don't need to apply for early opening to do this as you can photocopy papers in the hour before the tests.

5. Clerking Agency | Education Consultancy | Education HR | Finance Support | Governor Services | Professional Development | School Library Service | Target Tracker Essex Education Services Changes to format of answer booklets The levels 3-5 mental mathematics answer sheet is double sided this year. The front is a cover page with space for the pupil's name, school and Department for Education details. The answer boxes are on the back of the sheet.

6. Clerking Agency | Education Consultancy | Education HR | Finance Support | Governor Services | Professional Development | School Library Service | Target Tracker Essex Education Services Pupils are still only expected to produce up to 2 sides of writing in the level 6 English grammar, punctuation and spelling extended task. However, the answer booklet has an extra page at the back of the booklet. If pupils ask for additional paper they should use this space first.

7. Clerking Agency | Education Consultancy | Education HR | Finance Support | Governor Services | Professional Development | School Library Service | Target Tracker Essex Education Services English reading test: 'find and copy' questions 'Find and copy' questions in the English reading tests will now ask pupils to retrieve a 'word or group of words' rather than a 'word or phrase'.

8. Clerking Agency | Education Consultancy | Education HR | Finance Support | Governor Services | Professional Development | School Library Service | Target Tracker Essex Education Services Deadline for downloading or checking 2014 key stage 2 test scripts Please note the 'Return of results' section of NCA tools will close on Friday 27 March 2015. You will only be able to access your marked 2014 test scripts until this point. If you want to download or look at test scripts please do so before then.