Assessment of Performance Unit Mathematics Reports for Teachers

The Assessment of Performance Unit (APU) existed to provide objective information about national standards of children’s performance at all levels of ability. Its terms of reference included making the findings available to those concerned with resource allocations within government departments, Local Education Authorities and schools. As well as formal reports of each survey and academic paper, its outcomes included a series of booklets for teachers. These provide teachers with brief accounts of what was tested in the APU surveys in mathematics and summaries of performance in different aspects of mathematics of students at different ages and in different sub-groups.

The APU Mathematics and Language programmes focused on the performance of students aged 11 and 15, that is, those years which are generally the end of primary education and the final year of compulsory education.

Certain conditions were established for the surveys. At each age a sample of 1.5 per cent of the students in England (with slightly greater proportions in Wales and Northern Ireland) were to be involved in each survey. They were to be selected by a two-stage process: first a selection of schools and then a sample of students within school.