"Educational Psychology Assessment”- What do we mean and what do we do?

When parents first hear the term educational psychology assessment, they often picture tests puzzles, patterns, and number tasks that lead to a report full of scores. But that’s only a fraction of what might be involved.

From the perspective of a UK-trained educational psychologist, an assessment is about understanding your child’s learning journey, their environment, and the factors that shape their progress at home and at school. It’s a collaborative process designed to answer one central question: What will help this child learn and thrive? And depending on your child’s unique story, we will be answering this question in different ways, using different tools. At Elm Psychology each assessment is bespoke for this very reason.

What Is an Educational Psychology Assessment?

In the UK, educational psychologists (EPs) work with children and young people aged 0–25 years. We help understand barriers to learning, emotional well-being, and what a child might be communicating through their behaviour. An educational psychology assessment brings together information from many sources to build a full picture of a child’s strengths, needs, and context.

The word “assessment” comes from the Latin “assidere”, meaning “to sit beside.” That’s the essence of good assessment sitting beside the child, parents, and teachers to understand what’s happening, what’s working, and where extra support might be needed. 

Rather than relying on one test or score, EPs use a range of assessment methods to gather a rounded understanding. These usually include some combination of: 

• Classroom observation  

• Parent consultation  

• Consultation with teachers and school staff  

• Curriculum-based and attainment measures  

• Talking directly with the child  

• Considering the situation over time and in context  

• Dynamic assessment approaches  

• Cognitive and psychometric tests 

Together, these elements create a holistic assessment one that values both numerical and measurable data and lived experience. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

1. Parent/Carer Consultation: Your Expertise on Your Child

Parents and carers know their child best. That’s why parent consultation is a key part of every educational psychology assessment, and your work alongside us at Elm Psychology starts with this.

During our discussion, we explore:

• When you first noticed any difficulties  

• What your child enjoys and finds hard  

• How they are at home compared to school  

• Family, health, and developmental history  

• Your hopes and concerns for their future  

Parents provide the historical context how things have changed over time, and what may have influenced learning or behaviour.  

Strengths: Offers detailed insight into the child’s background and experiences.  

Limitations: Naturally subjective, so it’s one important piece of a wider puzzle.

2. Observation in School: Seeing Learning in Real Life

Observation is one of the most powerful assessment tools we have. Watching a child in their classroom or playground gives real-world insights that a test cannot.  

An EP will notice things like:

• How the child approaches tasks and reacts to challenge  

• How they interact with teachers and peers  

• The classroom setup noise, seating, routines  

• How much support or prompting they need  

This helps us understand how well the environment fits the child. For example, a child who seems inattentive may actually be struggling with background noise, while one who appears unmotivated may be masking anxiety. We have the privilege of being able to focus solely on one child, often in a classroom of 30 or more, meaning that we are able to see things that teachers and teaching assistants simply aren’t able to, despite their very best efforts.

Strengths: Provides authentic, contextual information.  

Limitations: It’s only a snapshot behaviour can vary from day to day.

Observation is most powerful when combined with other information from home and school.

3. School Staff Consultation: Professional Insight Into Learning

Teachers and school staff spend hours with your child each week and are essential partners in the assessment process. Educational psychologists consult with teachers to understand:

• The child’s progress in different subjects  

• Learning strategies that have been tried  

• Social relationships and classroom behaviour  

• Emotional factors influencing learning  

This discussion helps link the assessment to the curriculum and ensures recommendations are practical and relevant to the school setting. Like your child, all schools are different and so we want to ensure our recommendations are bespoke to your child and their school, to ensure the bets chance of overcoming barriers to learning.

Strengths: Provides detailed knowledge of the child in their learning environment over time. 

Limitations: Teachers tend naturally to focus on academic and behavioural aspects which need balancing with home and child perspectives.

4. Curriculum-Based and Attainment Measures: What the Data Shows

Schools already gather a wealth of information about your child’s learning. EPs often analyse this curriculum-based assessment data, such as:

• Reading and spelling scores  

• Writing samples and workbooks  

• Maths assessments  

• National Curriculum progress or standardised scores  

This helps us understand what your child can do, how they approach learning, and how their attainment compares to age expectations. We can start to cross reference this with other information from parent/carers, children themselves and teachers to gain a more rounded picture of why these scores and measures might look how they do.

Strengths: Directly connected to real learning outcomes.  

Limitations: Influenced by teaching quality, curriculum design, home and life events/influences and opportunity not purely a measure of ability.

5. Consultation With the Child: Hearing Their Voice

Children are central to their own assessment. The child’s voice matters not only because it’s a requirement under the SEND Code of Practice, but because it reveals how they feel about learning. Often the adult perspective of what the problem is differs form what the child feels the

problem is. As such if we try only to solve the adult view of the problem, we don’t succeed. Children must be included as much as possible, and at Elm Psychology, we work creatively and flexibly to support different communication styles and abilities, different age ranges and to minimise any anxiety about meeting and working alongside us.

Depending on age and ability, EPs use creative methods such as:

• Drawing or story tools  

• Scaling questions (“How easy is this for you?”)  

• Games or puzzles  

• Solution-focused questions (“What helps when things get tricky?”)

• Asking a child to give us a tour of the school. Where are your favourite/ least favourite areas, and why?

This assessment method often highlights emotional or motivational factors that might otherwise be missed. For instance, a child might explain that they avoid reading because they’re afraid of being wrong, revealing an anxiety issue rather than a skill gap.

Strengths: Empowers children and reveals personal experiences.  

Limitations: Younger children or those with communication needs may find it hard to express feelings directly.

6. Looking at the Situation Over Time: Developmental and Historical Context

Learning and behaviour don’t exist in a vacuum. Understanding a child’s history helps distinguish between long-term patterns and recent changes.

EPs consider:

• Developmental milestones  

• Previous assessments or interventions  

• Changes at home or school  

• Health or emotional factors over time  

This temporal (meaning “of time”) lens allows us to understand whether difficulties are new or longstanding and whether they may be linked to stress, transition, or underlying learning differences. Rather than a particular assessment method, this is a way of approaching assessment that we hold in mind across talking to parent/carers, children, teachers, gathering assessment data and so on.

7. Dynamic Assessment: Understanding How a Child Learns

Traditional tests show what a child knows. Dynamic assessment explores how they learn, and what they can know with teaching.

In this approach, the EP works interactively with the child teaching new concepts, offering

prompts or feedback, and observing how they respond. This reveals more about their learning potential and helps identify effective teaching strategies.

Dynamic assessment is particularly helpful for children from different cultural or language backgrounds, where standardised tests may not fairly reflect ability.

Strengths: Demonstrates learning potential and responsiveness to teaching, meaning recommendations for teachers are revealed as part of the assessment process itself. 

Limitations: Requires more time, purely qualitative.

8. Cognitive and Psychometric Assessment: Useful Data, Not the Whole Story

Cognitive or psychometric tests (for example, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Fifth Edition (WISC-V) or British Ability Scales (BAS-3)) are standardised tools that measure thinking and processing skills, including:

• Verbal reasoning  

• Visual-spatial skills  

• Working memory  

• Processing speed  

These tests can highlight particular patterns of strength and need, sometimes supporting the identification of specific learning differences such as dyslexia or processing difficulties. It is these tests that most people think of when they think about assessment, and hopefully by now you see that they are one small part of a much broader picture. These are not always used, as there are some important ethical considerations regarding the testing of children that EPs need to consider as part of their professional codes of conduct.

It’s crucial to remember: test scores are not the child. They offer a structured way to compare performance with age peers, but they don’t capture creativity, effort, or emotion. They only ever can offer us a snapshot of a child, their performance on that particular day and time.

Strengths: Provides objective, standardised information.  

Limitations: Influenced by test conditions, motivation, tiredness, hunger, anxiety about the tests, and familiarity. They must always be interpreted alongside other data, and not used in isolation. Standardised tests may not be appropriate for children from non- UK cultures or who have particular barriers to learning.

9. Triangulation in Educational Psychology: Pulling It All Together

The term triangulation means comparing information from multiple sources to check consistency and accuracy.  

An EP will bring together all findings from parents, teachers, observations, and tests to look for patterns. For example:

• A teacher says a child struggles to focus.  

• Observation shows they stay engaged during practical work.  

• The child says they find writing “boring because it’s hard to get ideas down.”  

• Testing/dynamic assessment suggests strong verbal skills but slower processing speed.

Triangulation helps clarify what’s really going on in this case, perhaps a motor or organisation issue rather than attention difficulty. It prevents over-reliance on any single perspective and supports more accurate conclusions. A high quality assessment will always draw on multiple sources of information and evidence to triangulate a psychological formulation (a provisional hypothesis or theory the psychologist creates with information from all sources to suggest an explanation for what might be happening for the child).

10. The Holistic Nature of Educational Psychology Assessment

A truly effective educational psychology assessment in the UK is:

• Holistic: considering learning, emotion, relationships, and environment  

• Contextual: recognising differences across settings  

• Collaborative: valuing input from parents, school staff, and the child  

• Dynamic: recognising that development and circumstances change  

The purpose is not to diagnose but to understand. The outcome is a set of recommendations that help schools and families support the child in practical, compassionate ways often as part of the SEND graduated approach or an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment process.

11. Strengths and Limitations of Assessment as a Whole

Even comprehensive assessments have boundaries. They capture a moment in time and rely on the cooperation and insight of everyone involved.

At their best, assessments:

• Build shared understanding and empathy  

• Centre and amplify the voice of the child

• Highlight both strengths and needs  

• Support tailored teaching and intervention  

But it’s worth remembering:

• No assessment can perfectly capture potential  

• Children change, so reassessment may be needed later  

• Reports are only useful if their recommendations are acted upon 

Assessment is the beginning of change, not the end.

An educational psychology assessment is far more than a series of psychometric/cognitive tests and sometimes, if they aren’t absolutely necessary, we don’t do those tests at all. It's a process of discovery. It’s about building understanding, hope, and practical next steps.  

When done well, it empowers parents, teachers, and the child to work together informed by insight rather than assumption.

So, when you think of assessment, think less about numbers and more about understanding the learner. That’s where real progress begins.

If you’re a parent or carer considering an educational psychology assessment in the UK, remember: it’s not just a report you’re commissioning, but a partnership, a chance to gain a deeper understanding of how to help your child succeed both academically and emotionally.

This article was written by Dr Emma L. Mercer, Educational Psychologist at Elm Psychology. HCPC Registration: PYL38502

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