How Standard and Long Report Cards pull your data (and how to get them to show what you want)

A report card doesn't store marks. Rather, it pulls them live from your assessments every time it's generated. What appears is the overlap of four things: the assessments and courses you've linked (1), the students/groups (2) on those assessments, each student's enrolment dates (3), and the date range (4) on the report card's 'Attainment' tab versus your assessment periods. 

Get these four lined up, and the card shows what you expect. This guide explains the model so you can set assessments up with report cards in mind and quickly diagnose anything that looks wrong.

Before you start 

This guide assumes you've read What are the different Report Card format types? and have (or are about to create) a report card via Creating Standard and Long Report Cards.

Permissions

• School: Report Card: Administer or Students: Report Card: Administer All/My Students - Needed to edit Report Cards
• School: Assessments: Administer - Needed to check your Annual Assessment Policy
• Student Profile: Enrolment: View All/My Students - needed to check and change student course enrolments

The four things a Report Card checks to include Assessments

(1) Is the assessment linked to the card? 

On the card's Attainment tab you add Courses, Progress (Summative), Ad Hoc, Curriculum (Formative) and DfE Statutory assessments. If it isn't added here, it won't show. 


 

Go to Students > Report Cards > All Report Cards, click on the report card and click on Attainment to check this. Add in missing courses and assessments as required.

(2) Are the students on the assessment? 

The students/classes and top-level courses must be added to the assessment (Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Manage Assessments > [Click the assessment that isn't appearing]). A common cause of blank marks is a student group that was never added to the assessment. 

Check the Students section near the bottom of the page (between Marking Grade sets and Linked Courses) to see if the students you want to include in the report card are also in one of the groups listed. If they are not listed, use the green +Add button to add them.

Important note: linking a course does not mean all students in the course get automatically added to the Assessment.

(3) Do the dates overlap? 

The Date Range on the Attainment tab (I) must overlap the assessment period (II) you want (Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Assessment Periods), and this assessment period must be linked to the assessment (III) you want to include. Any period that overlaps your range is included. 

1. To check your Date Range, go to Students > Report Cards > All Report Cards, click on the report card and click on Attainment to check this in the Date Range row of the General Attainment Settings section (I). Ensure a date range is set and that this covers the assessment periods (II) you want to include. The Progress periods section shows a helpful overview of which periods overlap with your current range.
   
   
   
   Don't see anything in the General Attainment Settings section at all? Click +Add to enter a Date Range on the slide-over.
   
   

    

2. If the assessment period you need still doesn't show after checking the date range, go to Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Assessment Periods to check the dates associated with the missing period. 

   
   
   Click on a measurement period to see the dates of individual Assessment periods (II) on a slide-over.

   

   
   In the example screenshot above, if you want to include the Summer 26 1 Half-termly measurement period (13 Apr 2026 - 7 Jun 2026) in a report card for the whole summer term, you need to make sure the Date Range (I) on the Attainment tab overlaps. A date range of 09 Jun 2026 - 31 Aug 2026 only overlaps with 'Summer 26 2', so assessments in 'Summer 26 1' won't show up on report cards, but 'Summer 26 2' will. On the other hand, if you expand the range to start on 07 Jun 2026, 'Summer 26 1' will also be included.

    

3. If the assessments you expect to see still don't appear on report cards, it's good practice to check that the assessments are linked to the assessment period you have set a date range for.

   To check this, head to Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Manage Assessments > [Click the assessment that isn't appearing]. On the next page, check the assessment period listed in Assessment details and check this against the assessment periods set up under Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Assessment Periods.
   
   

   In the example above, the Assessment measurement period linked to this assessment is a custom one and called 'End of Year Assessment'. If you scroll a bit further down the page to the Mark Entry section, you can see that the only assessment period within this is called Summer. Despite this name, this period may not actually align with the dates you expect for a summer assessment.
   
   

   To check if it does, head to Students> Assessments > Annual Policy > Assessment Periods, and click on the Assessment measurement period linked to the report card (e.g. Custom (End of Year Assessment)).
   
   

   In this example, even though the assessment period is called 'Summer', the dates do not perfectly align with the summer term (13 Apr 2026 - 31 Jul 2026). So, report cards with a date range (I) before or after that (e.g. 13 Apr to Apr 29) will not include this assessment period and therefore not include the assessment, even if this overlaps with the 'Summer' period for your Termly Measure.

   To resolve this:

   • Either change the date range on the report card (I)
   • Or, change the assessment period linked to the Assessment itself by exporting the associated marks, deleting the assessment and re-adding the Assessment to your Annual Policy with the correct assessment periods. 

   It is not possible to change the Assessment period linked to an Assessment once it has been added to your Annual Policy without deleting and re-adding it. More on how to do this here: Can we change or edit the assessment periods once the assessment is set up?
    

(4) Was the student enrolled at the time? 

A student must have been enrolled in the course within the Attainment date range. 

The easiest way to check this is to head to the Enrolment section on the left-hand side of a student's profile.

Check the dates the student is enrolled in the course you want to show an assessment for on your report card in the Enrolment Dates column of the Courses section.

In the example in the screenshot above, the student's enrolment in the Physics course ends on 01 Jun 2026. 

So, if the date range is as below (03 Jul 2026 - 31 Jul 2026) on the Attainment tab of the report card (Students > Report Cards > All Report Cards > [Click on the report card] > Click on Attainment), the physics assessment will not show for that student even if they have a mark for the assessment. 

You can see this if you head to the Report Cards tab and click on a student in the Sections table of the slide-over.

To resolve this:

• Either change the Date Range on the Attainment tab so it overlaps with the student's enrolment
• Or, change the student's enrolment to overlap with the Attainment Date Range on the Report Card in the case of an incorrect enrolment into the course.

If neither of these is possible, consider creating a separate report card batch with a different date range for the affected students by copying your report card setup.

Your 60-second setup checklist to ensure Assessments work with your Report Cards 

To avoid mismatches between your Report Cards and Assessments, review these things before setting up your Assessments.

• Decide the period/dates you'll report on before building assessments, and ensure the Assessment Periods you plan to use overlap with these dates
• Add the right student groups and linked courses to each assessment when adding the assessment to your annual policy.
• Choose the ad-hoc marking strategy deliberately: Single Mark (stand-alone) vs One Mark Per Course. And if you go for the One Mark Per Course strategy, you link the course as well as the assessment to the report card.
• Note any combined/shared-marksheet subjects (e.g. English Language/Literature, triple science) and see Setting up combined and shared subjects for report cards for advice on how to best set these up.

FAQs

Q: I can see the mark in the marksheet but not on the card. 

Check the four things above in order. Most often, the assessment isn't linked on the Attainment tab, or the date range doesn't overlap the period.