Demonstrating pupil progress and attainment requires more than simply looking at a finished piece of work. Clicker provides a range of tools that help teachers capture a richer picture of what pupils know, understand and can do. From writing grids and Talk Sets to Voice Notes, pupil surveys and Clicker Analytics, learners can record their ideas, communicate their understanding and evidence their progress in ways that suit their individual needs.

Whatever Clicker Set or tool pupils are using to create their writing, you can collect valuable evidence that can inform assessment and target reviews. In this blog post, we'll explore how Clicker's supportive features help schools measure attainment, track progress over time and gain deeper insights into each pupil's learning journey.

Monitoring progress

Whenever pupils create a piece of work, teachers and support staff can see how they entered text, which support tools they used, and how independently they worked. Clicker Analytics can show if work has been copied and pasted from another source, which words were corrected using Spell Check, and any words that were added using the Predictor. Analytics also shows whether a pupil used the speech feedback tool to support them further. Teaching staff can track these insights over time to monitor progress.

This information is particularly valuable when tracking short-term targets. For example, if a pupil's target is to begin to write more independently, Analytics can show whether they typed words themselves or if they still needed some support from Clicker Sets, the Predictor or speech feedback. Teachers can therefore measure progress towards independence rather than simply assessing the finished product.

Immediate formative assessment

Clicker Analytics collects information as the piece of writing is being created. Staff are quickly able to assess pieces of work against targets - especially spelling. Within Analytics you can see when pupils used Spell Check and what they had initially typed into the Document. This means you can track any common misspellings and target them appropriately. You can copy the list of words to create a personalised spelling list for your pupils in seconds, and it means no additional work for staff; Clicker does the collating for you!

Evidence for individual targets

Voice Notes provide an alternative way for pupils to capture and demonstrate their learning, particularly those who may struggle with writing, spelling or organising their ideas independently. Pupils are able to record their thoughts verbally, allowing them to show understanding without being limited by their writing skills.

This enables them to capture their thoughts throughout different curriculum areas, creating rich evidence of progress towards individual SEND or personalised learning targets. Teachers can then use these recordings to assess speaking and listening skills, monitor understanding, and provide clear evidence of attainment that might not be evident from written work alone.

Gathering pupil voice

Talk Sets and writing grids provide an accessible way for pupils to share their views, opinions and reflections on their own learning. Teachers can create structured grids or Talk Sets with supportive vocabulary, symbols, images and sentence starters, removing common barriers for learners who may find it difficult to construct their answers or organise their thoughts. You can use the completed work as evidence of pupil voice, demonstrating how pupils feel about their learning, what support they find helpful, and their aspirations or next steps.

You can also use our ready-made pupil survey Connect Set to get feedback from your learners about how they feel about using Clicker.

Want to know more about using Clicker to support assessment? You might find these resources useful:

• Curriculum assessment with Clicker: Formative and summative
  
  
• Assessing pupils’ writing progress in KS2
  
  
• Use Clicker Analytics

For personalised advice on using Clicker with your learners, book a customer care meeting at any point during your subscription.

Speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN) is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of challenges pupils may face that can make writing more demanding.

Clicker has many features that can support the transition from spoken language to independent writing. In this blog post, I will show you how a selection of different Clicker Sets can be used to help learners develop crucial skills for successful communication.

Clicker Boards

Clicker Boards provide a visual, interactive space where pupils can explore and organise ideas using words, pictures, and audio.

This makes them ideal for developing vocabulary, background knowledge, and conceptual understanding, areas where many pupils with SLCN need targeted support.

Clicker Board is a flexible tool that can be used in a variety of ways. This includes sorting activities, which help learners understand classifications and concepts, and as a tool for accessible vocabulary collection.

Clicker Boards also make a wonderful collaborative activity. When learners work on a Clicker Board together, they are encouraged to share ideas and explore new vocabulary. They can be used on individual devices or displayed on a big screen for everyone to access together.

Connect Sets

Pupils with SLCN can often struggle to organise their ideas and create sentences. Connect Sets offer them a writing scaffold full of ideas and vocabulary options but still give them flexibility in the sentences they create.

Being able to select vocabulary without having to generate it reduces the cognitive load of writing. Pupils can focus on meaning, order, and communication rather than spelling or word recall.

Connect Sets enable pupils to produce meaningful language independently, supporting confidence and reducing reliance on adult support within lessons. When combined with Widgit Symbols, Connect Sets provide accessible scaffolding for pupils who struggle with expressive language.

We have thousands of ready-made resources within LearningGrids for teachers and school staff to use. All of the resources can be edited to give pupils the specific support they need whilst still accessing the same resources as their peers.

Talk Sets

Talk Sets support spoken language through structured recording activities. They are especially useful for pupils who need time to process language or practise speaking before sharing with others.

There are three types of Talk Sets:

• Listen and Say: The learner listens to a recording of new words, then practises saying them with the Sound Recorder.
  
  
• Talk About: The learner can click on an image to record their thoughts and understanding of the topic it represents.
  
  
• Tell the Story: The learner has a series of images that follow a sequence, and they can record themselves talking about each one to tell the story from start to finish.

Each type of Talk Set enables pupils to practise speaking without pressure, repeat recordings, and listen back to their own voice. They also include images or prompts, so pupils can structure explanations, recount events, or practise vocabulary in a clear order.

You can find more information about this topic by watching our on-demand webinar recording: Using Clicker to support pupils with speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN).

If you want to know more about how Clicker can support the varying needs of your cohort, you can take a look at these blogs:

• SEND white paper: How Clicker supports an inclusive approach
  
  
• LearningGrids: Reading and writing resources for adaptive teaching
  
  
• Supporting EAL learners in the classroom with Clicker

And for personalised advice on using Clicker with your learners, you can book a customer care meeting at any point during your subscription.

In this blog post, I will outline a few quick and simple things you can do with the writing support tools in Clicker to help your pupils write. Everything in this blog post is easy to implement, with minimal preparation and maximum impact in the classroom. However, if you have any questions about any of the tips, we’re more than happy to help.

Whether you're supporting emerging writers, encouraging reluctant learners or aiming to boost writing confidence across the board, these practical tips will help you get the most out of Clicker right away.

Let’s explore how Clicker can become a powerful tool to help develop pupils’ writing skills, one step at a time.

Voice Notes

Using Voice Notes pupils can record their own audio notes before they write, in three quick clicks!

Pupils can rehearse their sentences and capture their initial thoughts and ideas before they begin writing.

• Pupils can listen to their Voice Notes as many times as they need.
  
  
• Voice Notes can bridge the gap between thinking and writing.
  
  
• They also help to develop oral language skills.  Pupils can explain their reasoning aloud, which is also a huge benefit for EAL pupils.

Teachers and teaching assistants can also use Voice Notes. They can:

• Pre-record instructions, broken down into smaller steps, to help learners break their tasks into manageable steps.
  
  
• Leave personalised audio feedback on pupil work, quickly and informally, without adding to teacher workload.
  
  
• Show modelled thinking, as this can be pre-recorded into the document for the pupils to access.

Voice Notes are easy and simple to use, not just for staff but pupils too!

Here is how you can access Voice Notes:

Predictor

Clicker’s built in Predictor suggests words even before your pupil has begun to type, offering writing support for pupils who struggle with ‘blank page syndrome’, or find it difficult to get started and maintain momentum with their written tasks.

The Predictor is an intuitive tool to boost children’s confidence and independence, helping them to see their thoughts correctly turned into writing without waiting for adult support. It also suggests a wider range of more advanced and varied vocabulary to support vocabulary development.

Additionally, the Predictor works alongside any open writing grids, such as Word Banks, to suggest vocabulary that is relevant to the topic or subject pupils are writing about.

Here is how you can turn the Predictor on and off:

LearningGrids

Clicker's LearningGrids are a valuable lesson resource tool for teachers and pupils.

LearningGrids is our bank of thousands of ready-made resources tailored to different subjects, topics, and ability levels across the curriculum. All designed by our in-house curriculum team, these resources are high-quality and closely aligned with curriculum needs. They are regularly updated and expanded, ensuring fresh, relevant content is always available to save teachers’ time.

Here are some of the resources you can assign to learners to give them a quick writing boost:

• Word Banks: When using a Word Bank, the learner has point-and-click access to the key words from the topic at the bottom of their document. This means they can use those words without having to worry about spelling or word recall.
  
  
• Sentence Sets: Each grid in a Sentence Set contains all the words a learner will need to build a sentence. This support helps to develop early writing skills like left-to-right directionality and capital letter use.
  
  
• Connect Sets: A Connect Set provides learners with clusters of words and phrases to help them build a coherent piece of text.

For pupils, LearningGrids provides structured support that boosts confidence and independence when reading and writing.

Additionally, you can easily customise any of the resources on LearningGrids to fit your classroom needs, or you can create your own.

By creating a custom Word Bank, for instance, you can tailor the writing support to match current topics, classroom themes, or individual pupil needs.  

Here’s how easy it is to create a custom Word Bank:

Talk Sets

Talk Sets are a great way to support the development of speaking and listening skills.

These picture-based resources can be used to create three different types of activity to support children where they are:

• Listen and Say: The learner listens to a recording of new words, then practises saying them with the Sound Recorder.
  
  
• Talk About: The learner can click on an image to record their thoughts and understanding of the topic.
  
  
• Tell the Story: The learner has a series of images that follow a sequence, and they can record themselves talking about each one to tell the story from start to finish.

Talk Sets are particularly effective for those who struggle to express themselves in written form, and for English language learners. Learners can record their knowledge or opinions easily and quickly. Talk Sets take away the pressure of writing and help children to express what they know!

Here is how to record into a Talk Set:

Clicker Boards

Clicker Boards are a powerful tool for gathering pupils’ ideas and thoughts before writing. They help learners to organise their thinking and prepare for writing tasks through an easy-to-use mind mapping or planning tool.

With a Clicker Board displayed on your interactive whiteboard, pupils can share their ideas whilst you collect them in the moment and build a visual bank of inspiration for them to draw on. 

You can also add Voice Notes to your Boards, helping to turn thinking into writing.

Here is how you can add information to a Clicker Board:

Once you have collected vocabulary and ideas, you can turn your Board into a Word Bank to support and guide the writing process in the Document. By organising key words and phrases in one place, young writers are better equipped to translate their ideas into coherent, well-structured text.

Here is how you can turn a Clicker Board into a Word Bank:

Additional resources

Find out more about how Clicker can support pupils in the classroom:

• LearningGrids: Reading and writing resources for adaptive teaching
  
  
• A writing journey with Clicker’s Writing Grids
  
  
• Clicker for whole class teaching
  
  
• On-demand webinars: Free recordings of our fantastic webinars. Explore how Clicker can support a variety of learners, needs and settings.

Last week, Gemma, our UK Customer Experience Manager, hosted a webinar focusing on Clicker, our assistive technology for the primary classroom, and autism. In this webinar Gemma addressed various challenges autistic learners may face and how Clicker can help overcome these challenges.  

“One of our stand-out successes with Clicker is the progress it made for a learner with ASD. She was initially unwilling to write or talk about anything, so it was hard to ascertain her comprehension and writing ability. Using Clicker, she initially re-wrote the plot to her reading books with support from her PSA. Eventually we reduced her human support so she was using purely Clicker and its built-in support, and now she can complete work independently and she writes her own stories using the word predictor and writing frames!” – Sarah Gibson, Park Road Primary School  

"Clicker has been a game-changer for many of our pupils, particularly those with dyslexia, ADHD, and some on the autism spectrum. I love how Clicker’s tools help improve concentration, working memory and promote independence. I also use Clicker Books to create social stories for our pupils with ASD, making learning engaging and enjoyable for them." -
Emma O'Monaigh, Riverside Primary School

Here are my 3 takeaways from the session and some of my favourite LearningGrids resources that I would have used in my classroom to support my autistic pupils: 

1. Establish and embed routines
   Learners with autism often like to have routines in place to help them feel reassured and to minimise surprises. We have lots of engaging resources available in Clicker to support these routines.  
   
   
   • Visual timetables: In LearningGrids (our bank of pre-made resources), you will find the Visual Schedule Clicker Board. This is an editable visual timetable structure that can be fully adapted to suit the needs and routine of your learners. This is a great tool to use on learners’ individual iPads or on the class interactive whiteboard – and it can also be printed to be displayed in the classroom or learning environment.
     
     
     
     
   • Now, next, then: Schedules are a great way of helping pupils record and track activities and understand the passing of time. Resources that include key time phrases like now, next and then are brilliant for introducing simple schedules.  
     
     
     
     
2. Social and emotional learning support
   Learners with autism may need extra support to understand the emotions of others or to regulate their own emotions. Gemma explored a range of Clicker resources that explore a child’s feelings and are great prompts to use throughout the day.  
   
   
   • Emotion check-in: Talking about emotions can start small – LearningGrids has perfect resources that autistic learners can use to familiarise themselves with identifying and talking about emotions.  
     
     
     
     
   • Accessible stories: As Gemma demonstrated in the webinar, stories are a fantastic stimulus to discuss emotions. Peter’s Feelings is an accessible story that pupils can read by themselves using Clicker’s speech feedback, or with an adult. Peter’s Feelings is a great way to introduce and consolidate pupils’ understanding of emotions as its picture support offers relatable scenarios with clear facial expressions.
     
     
     
     
   • Related writing tasks: To follow on from the story Peter’s Feelings, pupils can reflect and demonstrate their understanding with related writing resources – like this Sentence Set where they retell the story.
     
     
     
     
3. Clicker resources are adaptable to each learner’s specific needs!  
   
   
   • Customise appearance: Clicker lets you customise both your own resources and those from LearningGrids. For autistic learners, who may find certain resources overstimulating, you can reduce the number of icons shown on screen and change the font and background colour to suit their learning preferences.  
     
     
   • Optimise speech feedback: You can also adjust the sound and speed of Clicker’s voice in the Speech Support tool to maximise engagement.  
     
     
   • Picture support: Clicker also offers picture support to boost learners’ comprehension and confidence when writing. You can add images from the built-in CrickPix library or upload your own, such as a learner’s favourite character, or family member, to make the content more engaging. 
     
     

If you’d like more information on using Clicker to support your learners with autism: 

• Download our free PDF – Support for children with autism 
  
  
• Book a customer care meeting (current subscribers) 
  
  
• Book a discovery call (if you’re not currently a subscriber but want to find out more!)