The Highland Diagnostic Assessments are organised into two categories:

• Strategy
• Knowledge

Strategy:

• Relates to how we solve a problem that we do need to calculate.
• The solution is not known instantly (although for some problems within the strategy assessments, pupils will, in time, be able to answer these problems as knowledge rather than needing a strategy).

• Relates to the information we just know and don't need to think about/calculate e.g. I know that after 7 comes 8 or 5 + 4 = 9.

There is a relationship between these two areas whereby problems that initially involved a strategy to solve them, in time, just become known facts.  These new facts then feed into new more complex strategies and so the process continues.

The assessments available in the two areas include:

Strategy:

• Addition and Subtraction
• Multiplication and Division
• Fractions, Proportions and Ratios

Knowledge: 

• Numeral Identification
• Forward Number Word Sequences
• Backward Number Word Sequences
• Grouping and Place Value
• Basic Facts
• Fractional Numbers

The next page will take you through a quiz to better familiarise yourself with the difference between strategy and knowledge as well as the inter-relationship between these two things.