By Sandra Ohemeng, Stephanie Clarke and Kate Birch

About the Learner Profile Working Group

As part of the Rethinking School programme, Rethinking Assessment ran a working group to explore how digital learner profiles could support more meaningful and holistic assessment and reporting. Teachers in this group explored different digital formats in order to prototype a profile that captured a richer picture of each learner’s progress, strengths, and achievements beyond traditional academic grades. Digital learner profiles can include self-reflection, teacher comments, and multimedia evidence of learning across subjects and skill areas. During the course of the programme participants either trialled their prototype with a small group of learners or conducted consultations with pupils or staff to understand how the profiles might enhance communication and engagement. The working group drew on insights from the Rethinking Assessment Learner Profile framework to guide their design, focusing on how digital tools can amplify student voice and offer teachers and parents a clearer, more personalised view of pupils’ learning journeys. These vignettes are offered in the spirit of joint exploration and problem solving and show the variety of Work-in-Progress projects across the country.

About Alexandra Primary

Alexandra Primary is a thriving two form entry primary school located in Wood Green, North London with 430 pupils on roll. Our motto at Alexandra is Aspire, Achieve, Enjoy; we want our children to have the highest aspirations, achieve their full potential and enjoy learning in an environment that is stimulating, challenging and creative. Inclusion and belonging are at the heart of our school ethos and we are proud of the linguistic, social, and cultural diversity of the families that we serve. We strive to ensure all our children are successful, confident learners and develop the skills needed to thrive now and in their future.

Why digital learner profiles?

We wanted to introduce digital learner profiles to better capture the breadth of pupils' experiences, interests, and development across the curriculum, particularly elements that are often underrepresented in traditional assessment approaches. We wanted to provide children with a personal, creative, and reflective space to showcase their learning journey, including achievements from both within and beyond the classroom.

Exploration and prototyping

We focused our project on Year 5, designing a pilot that began in the spring term of year 5, and those students have now taken their profile into Year 6 and are finishing it after SATs as a celebration and marker of their achievement and development during their Upper Key Stage 2 journey.

At the beginning of our learner profile project we explored using Google Slides as a method of building a learner profile. We felt that the pupils were familiar with this format and we could create an online profile with several slides/pages to capture different areas of both formal and informal learning.

However, although pupils built confidence in writing in the text fields and working with images, we were drawn back to what the alternative of Google Sites could offer in terms of flexibility and functionality. We took a decision to move away from Slides and to develop a new prototype in Sites. Our new profile design was inspired by existing examples on the Rethinking Assessment Learner Profile Tool Kit (for example, Surrey Square’s profile) and we developed it to align with our values of kindness, curiosity, courage and responsibility.

We used Google Sites as the main platform for building digital learner profiles, with Google Drive supporting the collection and organisation of photos and artefacts. Pupils could access their profiles both at school and some pupils were motivated enough to access them at home through Google Classroom during the holiday, allowing for flexibility and extended learning time. To support equitable access, we are considering introducing a fortnightly after-school club, particularly for children without reliable internet or devices at home.

Curriculum integration and use cases

Learner profiles were integrated across subjects and experiences. Year 5 computing lessons were used for regular learner profile updates. This timetabled approach ensured consistency and commitment and was essential in designating the necessary time for the profile development.

The "All About Me" section of each profile allowed pupils to share personal interests, hobbies, and talents. This helped teachers learn more about quieter children who might not otherwise share their passions, such as one pupil who demonstrated his talents as an artist through his digital profile.

Whilst they were not in constant use, they were used to periodically collect experiences or reflections of learning that must otherwise not be recorded. For example:

• After a trip to the Houses of Parliament, all pupils were encouraged to reflect and post about their visit, allowing for shared focus while still enabling individual expression.
• During a plant fostering project with the local common, pupils documented the full lifecycle – from nurturing plants at home to planting them in the community. This provided rich visual and narrative content for their profiles.
• Forest School sessions offered another valuable context. Learners included photographs and reflections that might otherwise remain undocumented.

After SATs are completed in the summer term we will give more dedicated time for pupils to finish off their learner profiles before the end of term and the end of their Primary school journey.

Benefits of digital learner profiles

Although the prototyping and then introduction of learner profiles to years 5 and 6 has taken over a year so far, we have seen the benefits. One of the most significant impacts was on pupil motivation and ownership. Knowing their work would be shared with others, including parents, peers, and future teachers as part of transition to secondary school, is giving children this year a real sense of purpose and pride. This encourages them, with support, to produce high-quality, thoughtful entries that reflect their interests, achievements, and learning journeys. The profiles have also nurtured creativity and individuality; pupils were able to experiment with layouts, colours, images, and design elements, resulting in profiles that felt personal and expressive.

From a teaching perspective, the profiles offered valuable new insights. Teachers were able to better understand their pupils’ personalities, strengths, and aspirations – especially those who were quieter in class or preferred to communicate in visual or written formats rather than verbally. Importantly, the profiles served as a tool for capturing aspects of learning that often fall outside traditional assessment, such as collaborative projects, outdoor learning, or personal achievements. This helped build a more holistic picture of each child, recognising the full breadth of their experience and progress across the wider curriculum. The profiles allowed us to evidence learning from cross-curricular and experiential activities that don’t always appear in exercise books or formal assessments.

Parent engagement is also a benefit that we anticipate. A key milestone will be our summer Open Evening, where children will share their profiles with parents. This will serve not only as a celebration of learning but also give parents a fuller picture of their child's strengths, interests, and contributions beyond traditional test scores. The prospect of having an audience adds meaning and purpose to pupils’ work.

Our future plans

Looking ahead, there are several ways we plan to develop the use of digital learner profiles further. One key area is making stronger, more explicit links between profile entries and our school values. For example, pupils could be encouraged to reflect on times they have demonstrated values such as responsibility – perhaps through roles like school councillors, reading ambassadors, or buddies to younger pupils. This would help deepen their self-awareness and reinforce the value of wider skills development alongside academic progress.

We are also keen to refine the way the profiles connect to assessment by exploring how to capture the growth of key skills such as leadership, collaboration, or creativity. The aim is to do this in a way that values depth and individuality without becoming overly rigid or checklist-driven. While on this journey we have considered whether we wanted to ‘measure’ certain skills, rather than take a holistic approach to capturing evidence; on balance we wish to remain taking a broader perspective, and not focus at this point on assessment tools or progression frameworks for specific skills. However, we will continue to review this.

Another important priority is ensuring equitable access to the profiles for all pupils. While many children are confident using digital tools in school, we recognise that not all have the same support or opportunities outside of it. To address this, we are considering launching an after-school club focused on profile development, giving children dedicated time, support, and access to devices. Additionally, continued staff training will be crucial to ensure a consistent approach across classes and to help teachers feel confident in guiding pupils to reflect meaningfully on their learning and achievements.