How to access the National Curriculum Assessments Portal
Source: gov.uk (2025-10-31)

Information for schools, local authorities and multi-academy trusts (MATs) on how to access the National Curriculum Assessments Portal (NCA Portal).

About the NCA Portal

The NCA Portal (https://www.ncaportal.education.gov.uk/) is a secure website that supports primary schools, local authorities and MATs with the administration of the:

phonics screening check

optional key stage 1 (KS1) tests

statutory key stage 2 (KS2) tests and teacher assessment

Schools can:

place test orders

download phonics screening check and optional KS1 test materials

register pupils for KS2 tests

apply for KS2 access arrangements

submit online attendance registers

submit headteacher’s declaration forms

download teacher assessment standardisation training materials

submit KS2 teacher assessment data

view KS2 test results and marked test scripts

Local authorities can:

download teacher assessment standardisation training materials

complete standardisation exercises

review standardisation exercise results and commentaries

approve monitoring and moderation agreements with academies and participating independent schools

generate reports on KS2 access arrangements to help inform monitoring visits

submit KS2 teacher assessment data on behalf of schools

record external moderation data for schools

view KS2 results

MATs can:
- access KS2 results for schools they manage
KS3 schools can:
- access KS2 results for their incoming year 7 pupils only
Requesting a new account

If you don’t have an NCA Portal account yet, ask a user within your organisation who has ‘account manager’ permissions to create one for you. In schools, this is usually the headteacher. In local authorities, this is usually a senior local authority user or moderation manager.

You will need to provide your full name, email address and information about any user permissions (#user-permissions) you need.

MATs and KS3 schools will receive email invitations with access instructions to activate their accounts from Monday 1 June 2026.

Allowing emails from the NCA Portal

The NCA Portal will send you automated emails, including MFA codes to sign in and important notifications when forms are available to access.

To ensure you receive these emails, please add the following email addresses to your safe senders list:
- xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx)
- xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx)
Please also check your junk mail folder for any missing emails from the NCA Portal.

Signing in

To sign in to the NCA Portal (https://www.ncaportal.education.gov.uk/):

Enter your username* (this is your email address) and password.

Select the ‘Sign in’ button at the bottom of the page.

The NCA Portal uses MFA, which is required only on your first sign in of each day. Once you select the ‘Sign in’ button, you will receive an email with a 6-digit verification code. To complete your sign in, please enter this on the system when prompted. Note that you can only use each code once.

*If you are a local authority moderator with NCA Portal access as a school user as well as a local authority user, and you are using the same email address for both accounts, your username for your:
- school account is your school email address – for example: ‘firstname.surname@schoolname.sch.uk’
- local authority account is your school email address with ‘+mod’ added before the @symbol – for example: ‘firstname.surname+mod@schoolname.sch.uk’
The following video demonstrates how to access the NCA Portal, including additional information on how MFA works:

How to access the National Curriculum Assessments Portal (NCA Portal) (https://youtu.be/MX_SsZhQHWo)

Changing your password

You can change your password at any time by following the steps below:

Sign in to the NCA Portal (https://www.ncaportal.education.gov.uk/).

Select the ‘Account’ tab at the top of the page.

Select ‘Change password’.

Enter your current password, then enter a new password and confirm.

Do not share your NCA Portal password with anyone.

Navigating the NCA Portal

On the landing page, after signing in, you will find the dashboard with all available activities, their due dates and status.

To access any activity on the dashboard, select the activity’s title. Each activity is accompanied by in-system guidance to help you understand what you need to do.

Use the tabs at the top of the landing page to navigate between the system’s functions. Your available functions and activities will be based on the user permissions of your account.

Top tips

When moving around the NCA Portal, please do not use the ‘Back’ button on your internet browser. Instead, navigate the website using the links and menus within the NCA Portal.

The NCA Portal will time out after 30 minutes of inactivity. This includes staying on the same page for too long without submitting any information. If your session times out, you will have to sign in again to regain access. To avoid being timed out and potentially losing work in progress, make sure you have all relevant information available before starting your session.

There is a save function for longer activities, such as pupil registration, so that you can partially complete them and then submit them later. Shorter activities, such as test orders, must be completed in one session.

User permissions

School user permissions

There are 3 different permission levels for school users:

Schools can have up to 7 users in total, but are restricted to a maximum of 2 ‘School account manager’ users.

If ‘School account manager’ users need to view or complete additional tasks beyond managing user accounts, they will also need to add ‘School general user’ and ‘School access arrangements’ permissions to their account, as appropriate. Account managers can update their own permissions.

Local authority user permissions

There are 7 different permission levels for local authority users:

If required, local authority users can have access to multiple local authorities, and switch between them, within the same account.

However, local authority users who also require schools access, such as moderators, will need 2 separate accounts. These can be set up with different email addresses or both be linked to the one official school email address.

Account manager responsibilities

School and local authority users who have account manager permissions should ensure that their organisation’s users are kept up to date and only have access to the permission levels needed to carry out the functions of their role.

Account managers must carry out regular reviews to ensure that leavers are removed and permission levels are amended when staff join or move to a new role.

Creating users

To create a new user, please follow the steps below:

Select the ‘Account’ tab.

Select ‘Manage access’ or ‘Manage moderation team access’, depending on the required permissions.

Enter the user’s full name and email address, and select the relevant user permissions.

Select ‘Create user’.

You will receive email confirmation, and the new user will receive an email with details of how to sign in.

Additional information for creating dual users

To set up NCA Portal access for someone who is a school user but also needs local authority permissions, such as a moderator, 2 separate accounts are required. To create the user’s:
- school account, use their official school email address – for example, ‘firstname.surname@schoolname.sch.uk’
- local authority account, use a separate official email address, where possible – for example, ‘xxx@xxx.xx’
If a user already has a school account and requests a local authority account with the same email address, the NCA Portal will display an error message. Where this is the case, follow the steps below:

Select the ‘Account’ tab.

Select ‘Manage moderation team access’.

Enter the user’s full name.

Enter the user’s existing school email address already registered on the NCA Portal, with ‘+mod’ added before the @ symbol – for example: ‘firstname.surname+mod@schoolname.sch.uk’.

Select the relevant user permissions.

Select ‘Create user’.

7. You will receive email confirmation, and the new user will receive an email with details of how to sign in.

Alternatively, you can submit a request for a dual user to the helpdesk, using the ‘Support’ section of the NCA Portal, to assign the additional role. Please include the following details:

first name and surname of the user

job role

local authority to be assigned to

email address already registered on the NCA Portal – this must be a school email

user permissions required – for example: moderator, moderation manager

confirmation that the user requires dual access as both a school user and a local authority user

These users will then be set up with an additional username to access their local authority account, which will be their existing school email address with ‘+mod’ added before the @ symbol – for example: ‘firstname.surname+mod@schoolname.sch.uk’.

You can track the progress of your helpdesk requests in the ‘Support’ section of the NCA Portal.

Local authority users who need access to multiple local authorities don’t need separate accounts. You can add additional local authority user permissions to the user’s existing local authority account, which will then enable them to switch between the different local authorities within the same account. Ensure you check which permissions the user needs for each local authority, as they may differ.

Deleting users

To delete users, please follow the steps below:

Select the ‘Account’ tab.

Select ‘Manage access’.

Navigate to the list of current users at the bottom of the page.

Select ‘Remove’ next to the user you want to delete.

Select ‘Delete user’.

You will receive email confirmation that the user has been removed.

School contact details

You can view your school’s contact details by selecting ‘Account’ and ‘View organisation details’.

If your school’s postal address or Department for Education (DfE) number has changed, you will need to change this on Get Information about Schools (GIAS) (https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/). Once you have done this, the NCA Portal will be automatically updated with the new information. This can take up to 2 weeks.

Local authority contact details

You can view your local authority’s users and contact details by selecting ‘Account’, then ‘Key contact details’ and ‘System contacts’. You can also add additional contact details within the ‘Additional contacts’ tab on this page.

Going forward, we will use these contact details on the NCA Portal for all tailored communications to local authorities. We will no longer use the ‘local authorities contact details survey’, which has now closed. To ensure the correct people within your local authority receive all the relevant communications with important information for moderation and monitoring, you should:

regularly review the user accounts on the NCA Portal

make sure that all registered users are up to date and have the correct permissions

remove accounts for any leavers

Further support

If you need more help with accessing or using the NCA Portal, please contact the national curriculum assessments helpline:

National curriculum assessments helpline Call: 0300 303 3013Email: assessments@education.gov.ukOnline: NCA Portal (http://www.ncaportal.education.gov.uk/) ‘Support’