The economical advantage of collecting achievement data already available, as in using end-of-key-stage tests for identifying national trends,must be judged against the extent to which it provides useful and relevant information. Similarly, the cost of establishing and running surveys covering a wide range of educational outcomes has to be judged against the more detailed feedback that can be useful to both policy-makers and practitioners. Separating monitoring from
the performance of individual pupils would obviate the need for central collection of individual pupil assessment data. This would remove the “need” for high stakes testing and would ensure that assessment – and, more importantly, what is taught – was no longer restricted to what can be tested. The continuation in several countries of regular surveys of small random samples of pupils indicates the value of this approach.