How to set your own Custom Assessment

Using custom assessments means that you:

• Can easily find the questions you want your learners to practise, in one place
• Can choose questions from different grades
• Don’t have to mark learners’ work - our system does it all for you
• Can immediately see where learners are struggling, and the areas where they need help

How to set a custom assessment

• Log in to your Teacher dashboard
• Click on Assign work on the navigation
• Select Assessments

On the Assign work page, select "Custom assessment"

You can create a new assessment by clicking on either Mathematics or Physical Sciences

Once you have selected the relevant subject for the assessment , you will begin setting the assessment by:

• Clicking on the different filters to personalise the assessment. These filters include difficulty level, examining body, Language.
• Then click on the question bank you want to select questions from. For example, Everything Maths, Grade 11.

After you have clicked on the grade you want to select questions from, the list of all topics in that grade will appear.

• Click on a section or topic for a list of all the questions in that section, with their different difficulty levels.

• Click on the subsection for a list of questions to appear.
• Click on any question title to see what kind of questions your learners will see.
• Select the question by ticking on the box on the top right. Please note that you can select as many questions as you like.

• Our platform is able to create many versions of the same question, so learners can practise more than one example of a question. If you want to see more versions then click on the blue “View another version” button.

• Select the questions you want to send your learners by clicking on the check box on the right-hand side of the question.

After selecting the questions, go to the next setting page and do the following:

• Input the title of your assessment
• Select which rules should apply to assessment by ticking whether you would want your learners to redo questions multiple times and to be shown the solutions after checking their submitted answers.
• Click on the next arrow to proceed to the last setting page of your assessment.

On the last setting page you will:

• Select the grade or class that you will be sending the assessment to.

• You can also input an optional message for your learners to read before attempting the assessment.
• The next action is to schedule the assessment by adding a start date(optional) and due date to your assessment.
• You may also select the time duration that you want your learners to spend when completing the assessment.
• Lastly you can choose to save the assessment as a Draft or click "Send now" .If you have select to send out your assessment at a later time, an option for "send at scheduled time" will also appear.

Draft, scheduled, and sent assignments

Once you click on Assign work and assessments, scroll down a bit to see:

1. DRAFT ASSESSMENTS:

• These are assessments that you’ve created but have not yet sent out.
• To work on a draft assessment , click on the asssessment title to enable you to edit and send it out.
• You may lso share the assessment with other teachers or delete the assessment from the draft list.

2. SCHEDULED ASSESSMENTS:

• These are assessments that are scheduled but have not yet gone out to your learners. Once the start date is reached, a scheduled assignment will move to the Sent Assessments table.
• It shows when the assessment will be sent to learners.
• It also shows the due date of the assessment.

3. SENT ASSESSMENTS:

All the assessments that you have previously sent to your learners will appear under Sent Assessments

• You can see how your learners did on the assessment and how many of them completed it on the assessment report. To view this, click on View in the report column.
• Share assessments you’ve created with other teachers
• Share assessment link with your learners by copying the link or by **email **.
• Reuse your old assessments

How learners receive an assessment

• Learners will see their latest assessments on their home page. It will show whether the assessment has been started, or whether they still have to start the assessment.
• Learners can click on their latest assessments to go straight to that assessment.

• Click on View all assessments to see any assignments that still need to be completed are in the “Current Assessments” table.
• There is also a table for past assessments, which shows those that are either complete or where the due date has passed.

Here are some ways in which you can use assessments to support your teaching objectives:

__ 1. Full check for understanding: __
Dedicate a maths or science lesson to Siyavula practice, to revise a section you have already taught by setting an assessment.

• You can choose the questions you want your learners to try
• Answers are immediately marked, with full solutions, so learners can see where they’re going wrong

__ 2. Assessments for homework: __
Create a Siyavula assessment for your learners to do as part of their homework.

• Answers are immediately marked, with full solutions, so learners can see where they’re going wrong
• Students can’t copy because everybody receives an equivalent but unique version.
• You save time because our system checks and tracks homework completion

__ 3. Informal assessments: __
Use Siyavula for an informal test during class or at home. You can schedule it and select how marks get awarded.

• You can schedule deadlines for the assessment.
• Learners cannot copy from one another because every student gets a unique but equivalent version of a question
• You save time because answers are marked and downloadable reports are generated automatically

Updated on: 23/07/2026