Key Points:
- The Smartgrade CUSP partnership aligns curriculum design with assessment data for clearer learning insights.
- Schools can track pupil progress against curriculum intent and compare results across CUSP schools.
- Assessments are positioned as tools to improve teaching and curriculum impact, not just measure performance.
Smartgrade has confirmed a new partnership with Curriculum with Unity Schools Partnership, known as CUSP, aimed at improving the alignment between curriculum design and assessment practice across primary and secondary education. The Smartgrade CUSP partnership was shared by Both organisations shared details of the collaboration through LinkedIn, outlining plans to connect curriculum intent more closely with assessment outcomes in schools.
CUSP works with more than 700 schools across the United Kingdom, as well as a growing number of international schools. The organisation supports schools and academy trusts through a shared curriculum model that focuses on collaborative design, implementation, and review. The new partnership brings together CUSP’s curriculum frameworks and Smartgrade’s assessment analysis platform to help schools gain clearer insight into how teaching and learning are progressing.
Integrating curriculum frameworks with assessment data
At the centre of the Smartgrade CUSP partnership is the integration of CUSP aligned assessments into the Smartgrade platform. This will allow schools using the CUSP curriculum to upload assessment data and review outcomes directly against the curriculum structure and intent.
CUSP’s curriculum frameworks are based on research informed approaches such as retrieval practice, spaced retrieval, and interleaving. They also place a strong emphasis on explicit vocabulary teaching and carefully sequenced content to support coherent learning over time. By linking these frameworks with assessment data, schools will be able to examine whether pupils are securing key knowledge as planned within the curriculum.
The Smartgrade CUSP partnership is designed to help teachers and leaders move beyond isolated test results. Instead, assessment outcomes can be viewed in the context of what was taught, when it was taught, and how content was sequenced. This approach aims to support more meaningful interpretation of pupil performance at the classroom, school, and trust level.
CUSP has confirmed that schools using its curriculum will also be able to view their assessment outcomes alongside data from other schools using the same CUSP aligned assessments. This shared view is intended to support reflection on curriculum implementation and help identify areas where further teaching focus may be needed.
Supporting schools during assessment development
Smartgrade was established in 2020 with a focus on helping schools design, manage, and analyse internal assessments. The platform supports the creation of more reliable assessment structures and provides tools for faster and clearer interpretation of results.
Sharing the announcement, Smartgrade co founder Joshua Perry explained that the Smartgrade CUSP partnership reflects the original purpose of the platform. He noted that Smartgrade was created to support closer alignment between curriculum and assessment by working alongside established curriculum providers across both primary and secondary phases.
CUSP also shared details of how the collaboration will operate during its current assessment development phase. The partnership will run throughout the CUSP Assessments Beta year, during which schools will use the integrated tools to explore how assessment data can inform curriculum understanding.
Further marking and assessment developments are expected later in the term, building on feedback from schools involved in the beta phase. CUSP stated that the collaboration is intended to support its ongoing work on assessment design that reflects curriculum structure and classroom practice.
For teachers, the partnership offers a way to connect daily teaching with assessment evidence in a more structured manner. For school leaders, it provides an opportunity to review curriculum impact across year groups and subjects using shared data tools.
As schools continue to focus on curriculum coherence and assessment reliability, the Smartgrade CUSP partnership highlights a growing emphasis on using assessment as a tool to support teaching and learning, rather than as a standalone measure of performance.
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