Dear Ministry of Education,

I am writing to request information under the Official Information Act 1982 regarding the assessment outputs and reporting processes used during the 2025 SMART trial phase, and how these differed from the 2026 national rollout.

Specifically, I request:

A description of the assessment outputs and reporting information provided to schools during the 2025 SMART trial phase, including the format in which results were returned to teachers or schools.

Confirmation of whether schools participating in the 2025 SMART trials received:

raw scores, scaled scores, curriculum-aligned judgements, moderation information, comparative reporting, or any other reporting outputs.

A description of the purpose of the 2025 SMART trial phase, including whether the trial was intended to test: assessment content, platform usability, scoring processes, moderation processes, scaling processes, reporting functionality, or system performance.

A description of the key differences between the 2025 trial reporting processes and the reporting processes used in the 2026 national rollout.

Confirmation of whether any evaluations, lessons learned reports, summary reviews, or internal analyses were produced regarding: the usefulness of trial outputs to schools, the timeliness of results, or any limitations identified during the trial phase.

Confirmation of whether any documentation, briefings, or internal analysis exist explaining the longer turnaround time for scaled results in the 2026 national rollout compared with the reporting processes used during the 2025 trial phase.

Confirmation of whether any evaluation, risk assessment, or internal advice was undertaken regarding the impact of result turnaround times on schools’ ability to use SMART data for teaching, moderation, or reporting purposes.

If no information exists for any aspect of this request, I request confirmation of that fact under section 18(e) of the Official Information Act.

This request relates to system-level assessment and reporting processes only and does not seek any individual student information.

Ngā mihi

Yours faithfully,

Tyler Craig