Gradespace Assess: the manual

October 2026. Covers Gradespace Assess 0.4.0 with Gradespace Tutor 0.4.0.

Gradespace Assess connects your website to your centre's TargetGrade school. Your tutors build online tests in the staff portal, and your students take them in the student portal, both on your own website and signed in as usual, with no second password. TargetGrade keeps the tests, the attempts and the marks.

You need:

• Gradespace Core (free) and Gradespace Tutor 0.2.0 or later with Pro (student accounts and classes). The portals come with Tutor 0.3.0, and groups with several subjects with Tutor 0.4.0.
• A TargetGrade school account. TargetGrade gives you a school ID and a school API key (it starts tgk_).
• Your website on https://, reachable from the internet, so TargetGrade can tell it when tests are marked.

Until Assess is connected, it only shows its connection screen. Nothing else on your website changes.

What it does

• Groups and subjects. With Tutor 0.4.0, a group can have several subjects, each with its own tutors. Each tutor works only with the subjects they teach, and each student sees only the tests for the subjects they take.

• Building tests. In the staff portal, tutors make a test for a subject they teach in one of their groups, add questions themselves, ask TargetGrade's AI for some, or paste in a worksheet. They check every suggested question before it's added, then publish it now or schedule it.

• Marking and analytics. Essays, and short answers the tutor chooses to mark, wait in a marking queue. Every test has analytics: the average, the spread of scores, the pass rate, and how each question and topic went.

• AI marking suggestions (off unless you switch them on): a suggested mark and feedback for an assignment, which the tutor checks and changes before returning it.

• Tests in the student portal. Students see the tests set for their class: the subject, when each closes, the time limit, how many attempts they have and where they are with it.

• A timed test that's hard to lose. One question at a time, with numbered buttons to jump between questions. Each answer is saved a moment after it's typed, so a student can close the laptop and carry on later, on another device. The clock follows the server, not the student's computer, and tells screen-reader users how long is left. When time runs out, the test is submitted with the answers saved so far.

• Question types: multiple choice, true or false, short answer, fill in the blanks and essay. Other kinds of question set in TargetGrade are shown to read only, with a note.

• Results when you release them. A student sees their score only once it's released, and the model answers only when your tutor shares them and the student can't use them on another try. The words on screen are TargetGrade's own.

• People linked for you. Classes, subjects, tutors and students are made in TargetGrade from yours.

• Emails: "Your result is ready" to the student, and a copy to the parent or guardian of a student under 18. The email never contains the mark itself.

Prices

Gradespace Assess is its own product with its own licence: Starter £69 for one website, or Agency £179 for up to five. A licence brings updates; everything works while you try it without one. Add the key under Site Settings → Licence, on the Gradespace Assess card (without one it says Not activated). It covers Gradespace Assess only: Core's Pro features, such as staff access or the email log, come with your kit's licence.

Chapters

1. Connecting TargetGrade
2. Students, tutors and classes
3. Building tests
4. Marking and analytics
5. Tests for students
6. Results, emails and privacy
7. AI marking suggestions