With change on the horizon for school assessment, it is worth pausing to take stock of the current landscape. The government’s move toward requiring schools to use standardised tests twice a year, along with the introduction of new government-funded assessments, has prompted many teachers and leaders to ask: “Where do the PATs fit in now?”
The short answer is that PATs remain one of the most trusted, research-based, and curriculum-aligned tools available to New Zealand schools. They have supported teachers for decades, providing a consistent, evidence-based way to understand student learning and progress. This will continue in 2026 and beyond, with NZCER providing continual updates to our tools alongside the introduction of our new PAT Tuhituhi | PAT Writing tool.
NZCER supports a diversity of assessment and is pleased to continue offering PATs in this changing assessment landscape.
What are PATs?
The Progress and Achievement Tests (PATs) measure proficiency in key aspects of learning that cut across the curriculum. For example:
PAT: Mathematics | Pāngarau – solving problems using ideas from number, measurement, geometry, algebra, statistics, and probability
PAT: Pānui | Reading Comprehension – using decoding skills to make meaning from written texts
PAT: Writing | Tuhituhi – crafting an extended written response to a prompt
PAT: Reading Vocabulary – understanding the meaning of words in written contexts
PAT: Listening – using aural skills to make meaning of texts
Together, these assessments provide dependable measures of achievement in areas that matter most for success in schooling and beyond.
How do the PATs work?
Each PAT is built from a carefully selected sample of questions that represent the key ideas and skills contributing to increasing competence in a learning domain. The content, such as reading passages, vocabulary items, or mathematical problems, is chosen to reflect what it means to become increasingly proficient and versatile within that domain.
Careful attention, through thorough review, piloting, and trialling processes, is given to ensuring that content is accessible and relevant to diverse ākonga across Aotearoa, and that performance reflects true understanding rather than differences in background knowledge or experience.
Tests are administered under standardised conditions, and student results are located on a common measurement scale. This allows results from different test forms (such as Tests 1, 2, or 3 in PAT: Pānui) to be compared directly, and it enables schools to interpret achievement relative to national reference groups.
Online administration, automated scoring, and reporting make it easy for teachers to explore results, to see trends, spot strengths and challenges, and monitor progress over time.
Data privacy and security for PATs
PAT data belongs to the schools that collect it. NZCER stores assessment data securely and follows strict privacy and data protection standards. Only authorised school users can access results, and data is never shared with third parties for commercial purposes. From time to time, NZCER uses anonymised, aggregated data to inform national research that helps improve assessments and deepen understanding of learning across Aotearoa.
What are PATs good for?
PATs are designed to help teachers and schools make sense of learning. They support:
Tracking progress across time for individuals and groups
Identifying learners who might need additional support or extension
Exploring next learning steps based on question-level detail
Understanding the impact of new programmes and interventions
While PATs are most often used at the start of the year, they can also be used effectively at other times. The key is to remember that comparisons with national year-level reference groups are based on data from students who sat the tests early in the school year.
PAT: Mathematics | Pāngarau and PAT Reading Vocabulary are also available in adaptive mode, which automatically adjusts the difficulty of questions to match each learner’s level, providing a more responsive testing experience.
Should you keep using PATs?
As the assessment landscape evolves, PATs offer something essential: stability, reliability, and a fundamental commitment to learning. They help teachers interpret evidence of progress, identify patterns, and make informed professional judgments.
PATs also help clarify what valuable learning looks like. Each test is underpinned by a clear definition of the construct being measured, such as reading comprehension or written communication, and this framework helps teachers think more deeply about the nature of progress in that area. In this way, PATs support shared professional understanding of the learning that matters most.
PATs shine a spotlight on essential learning and sit alongside classroom observations, rich learning conversations, and teacher-designed assessments as part of a broad, balanced approach to understanding learners and learning.
In short, PATs continue to offer a trusted foundation. They remind us that the goal of assessment is not just to measure or report, but to understand, and that understanding remains at the heart of effective teaching and learning. They offer schools a dependable measure of learning progress and are grounded in research, built for New Zealand ākonga, trusted by teachers, and crafted to increase understanding.