Understanding your learners' levels and needs

As your learners return to school, you may find that some students are at different levels or abilities. Everyone’s experience of learning remotely will be different, and some students will have engaged more with home education than others.

Our range of resources help you to understand your learners progress, identify any gaps and help prepare them for their exams.

If your learners haven’t been in normal class for several months, each of them will now be at a different stage. All of them will have made progress, but there will also have been some loss of learning, which will need reviewing. Some will have done more learning than others. Some may have chosen to avoid things they enjoy less or feel they aren’t good at.

Watch: Managing learning gaps

These sessions from the Cambridge Live Experience focus on differentiation activities for both face-to-face and online classrooms as well as understanding your students’ progress.

Top tips for understanding learner levels

Identify learning gaps

Here are some ideas and resources to help you understand what the gaps are:

Sample papers

Use sample papers to help you identify your learners’ level and where there are gaps. The results can support conversations with learners and their parents and guide your next steps in teaching.

Free sample tests, both paper-based and computer-based, can be found via our exam preparation page, or use our authentic practice tests. Our guide to converting practice test scores will help you understand how well your students are doing in each skill.

One-to-one sessions

Try to have a one-to-one session with each learner, time permitting. This can be in their first language to ensure an open and honest discussion.

Use these sessions to find out more about what they have been studying at home and give them guidance on how to address gaps you identified from the sample test.

The discussion can also help you understand any mental health issues that may have an impact on their on-going learning.

Confidence checks

When starting a new unit in your coursebook or at the start of each week or each lesson, find out how confident your learners are about what is coming up by asking them to do a quick quiz: How confident are you about…? (e.g. writing an email to a friend/describing people/using the present continuous, etc.).

Ask them again at the end of the unit/week/lesson. This can help learners to reflect on their own learning and build their confidence, as well as helping you to understand their needs better.

Address learning gaps

After you’ve identified the gaps, you can use our wide range of free resources to help address them:

Mixed ability activities

Some learners will need more support than others to catch up and may need more time to do activities.
Use our Fast finisher ideas for primary for the students who finish a task quickly while you support those who need more time. Give different homework tasks according to where learners need most practice.
Our self-access study materials (levels A2-C1) can help both weaker and stronger learners develop at their own pace.
If your learners have internet access, they can also use our online learning materials for both primary and secondary, or try our mobile app, Exam Lift (for A2 Key for Schools and B1 Preliminary for Schools).

Fast and meaningful feedback

Give learners feedback on what they have done as quickly as possible. Don’t just give them scores or highlight errors, but tell them what they have done well and make suggestions about how to improve.
For secondary learners, Write & Improve is a great tool to give learners instant feedback on their writing and to help them revise and improve what they’ve written.

Guides to assessing writing

Our new guides to assessing writing will help you to develop and assess learners’ writing skills. They include lots of practical tips and real-life examples to help you prepare your students for exams.

A2 Key for Schools

B1 Preliminary for Schools

B2 First for Schools
Sample papers and practice tests

We have sample papers and practice tests available for each of our exams. Using these will help you understand students’ progress and assess what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Download sample papers

Authentic practice tests

Download our practice test score converter

Fast finisher activities

Here are 14 fast-finisher ideas that you can use in your primary classroom, while you support the students that need more time.

Our self-study materials can also be used in mixed-ability classes for fast-finishers. They help students practise all four language skills at B2 and C1 level:

B2 First for Schools

C1 Advanced