Boost Insights: FAQs

Boost Insights launches in September 2024 and will run concurrently with MARK until February 2025, when MARK is retired.

Read our Frequently Asked Questions below for more information about the transition and how it impacts your school.

Sign in and bookmark your new page: boost-insights.com.

What needs to happen before I can use Boost Insights?

At first, only your Access Coordinator will have access to your institution's Boost Insights account.

This means that Access Coordinators will need to:

1. Grant Staff Access on the new platform so that your teachers can login.
2. Grant Pupil Access so that your learners appear on marksheets and can be assigned interactive tests.
3. Promote your learners for the 2024/25 academic year. The process is the same in Boost Insights as it was in MARK and can be done manually or via your MIS sync. (This isn't necessary if pupil promotion was performed in MARK in Summer 2024.)
4. Reauthorise any test data sharing from within Boost Insights.

Your institution’s Access Coordinator will be the same person as in your current MARK account (login credentials will be the same). If this person has left or you’re not sure who they are, please contact digital support to set up a new one.

What happens to my existing and historical test data in MARK?

Your assessment data will be migrated from your MARK account to your new Boost Insights account in line with our retention policy*. Your data will transfer for the following assessments: New PiRA, New PUMA, PiRA for Scotland, PUMA for Scotland, NTS Reading, NTS Mathematics, BNST and SSRCT.

As we have launched new editions of GAPS, ART and AMT assessments, marksheets and test data for the old editions of these will not be transferred to your Boost Insights account. If you wish to keep historical data for these tests you will need to download them from your MARK account before February 2025.

Please note, all data for Out of Print tests will not migrate to Boost Insights. This includes: PiRA Primary (2016 edition), PUMA Primary (2016 edition), PiRA KS3, PUMA KS3, PUMA Year 6 extension, Optional Tests (A,B,C), Progress Tests and Ready, Check, Go.

Although we advise moving to Boost Insights as soon as possible, you can continue to access MARK until the end of February 2025. Any assessment data that you enter into MARK before this time will also appear in Boost Insights the next day via a daily data sync, allowing you to generate reports in Boost Insights. However, this not does work the other way; any test data entered into Boost Insights or interactive tests taken in Boost Insights will not transfer to MARK.

*Up to 5 years’ worth of test data will be transferred to your new Boost Insights account. Data will not be available for inactive learners. A learner is considered inactive if no test is added for over 2 years, or 3 years for our ART/AMT test suites. In this case, their data will be anonymised and no longer available for you to view.

What happens to leftover interactive test credits in my account?

Any existing interactive test credits in your MARK account will not be transferred to Boost Insights. We therefore encourage you to use these up before the end of the 2023/24 academic year, and only purchase the necessary number of credits before then. 

If you do have leftover test credits in your MARK account in September 2024, you can continue to assign and use these within MARK until February 2025, at which point the platform will be taken offline and login will no longer be possible. Additionally, any test data added to MARK will be automatically transferred to Boost Insights until the end of February 2025. Please note that you cannot add more credits to your MARK account after September 2024. 

Interactive tests credits for ART and AMT are available to purchase from September 2024.

Interactive tests credits for New GaPS, New PiRA, New PUMA and PUMA for Scotland will be available to purchase from October 2024. 

If you have any questions concerning your interactive test credits, please speak to your local assessment consultant.

Can I still access Shine Interventions in Boost Insights?

Yes, Shine Interventions are fully supported within Boost Insights, with Intervention Reports and Learning Sequences available in the platform as they currently are in MARK!

For schools with Shine Maths and Shine Reading Skills subscriptions extending beyond 1st November 2024 (expiry date is 1st November onwards), your remaining subscriptions will be transferred from MARK to continue within your new Boost Insights account from October 2024.

Shine subscriptions are no longer available to renew or purchase for use within MARK. Secondary Shine subscriptions (for ART and AMT) are available to purchase now and Primary Shine Subscriptions (for NTS/PiRA/PUMA/GaPS) will be available to purchase online from mid-October 2024. If you wish to place an order before then please contact your local assessment consultant. 

To align with the release of New GAPS, a revised edition of Shine GPS will be available to purchase from mid-October 2024. 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your school's Shine subscription(s) please contact your local assessment consultant. 

What reports will I have access to in Boost Insights?

There are eight free reports for standardised assessments in Boost Insights, taking teachers’ favourite bits from our current MARK reports and adding even more ways to dig into the data! These are: School Overview, Question-level Analysis, Group Report, Individual Learner Report, Learner Progress Report, Test Performance Comparison, Age Performance Review and Group Average Review. 

Find out more about each report and how to generate them here.

Q: Can I still sync my account with my MIS and export test data?

Yes, MIS-syncs with our data partners, Arbor and Wonde, are supported in Boost Insights, and the Admin Hub will retain all your MIS user sync information from MARK. Please be aware, however, that we no longer support MIS-syncs via Xporter. 

Test data sharing with Arbor or FFT Aspire Pupil Tracking will need to be reconfigured within Boost Insights. Guidance for this can be found here.

Are there any MAT-level reporting features?

With a MAT/School Group login, MAT and school group leaders will have access to the performance data in their schools, allowing for comparison of attainment across institutions, subjects, and academic years. This includes the regular Boost Insights reports available to school staff and a MAT/School Group Comparison Report. 

Please note that the MAT/School Group Comparison Report is only available for test suites that use Performance Indicators and, as such, it does not include ART, AMT, BNST, or SSRCT assessment suites. 

Guidance on creating a MAT/School Group Account and downloading reports can be found here.

Is Boost Insights still free to access?

YES! As with MARK, Boost Insights is free to all of our standardised assessment customers, including marksheets, free reports, and all test resources! We believe that assessment is the backbone of understanding learners’ needs, but only with clear, robust, and freely available test data analysis!

What are the technical requirements?

To ensure that Boost Insights works as expected, please review our technical requirements.