Student performance in Portugal is assessed by a wide range of instruments, ranging from national standardised tests to ongoing daily formative assessment in the classroom. At the national level, full-cohort educational progress national tests are conducted in Grade 4, the results from which are used as key performance measures towards national goals. These are low stakes for schools, teachers and students. Summative assessment is based on a mix of teacher-based classroom assessments and national examinations. The latter take place at the end of both the second and third cycles of basic education (Grades 6 and 9), in Portuguese language and mathematics, and in secondary education in the last year of each subject (Grade 11 or 12). However, teachers hold most responsibility for summative assessment as the weight of national examinations is never dominant for the final mark. In the first cycle of basic education (Grades 1-4), assessment is generally informal and formative and results are reported in a descriptive and qualitative format. In the second and third cycles (Grades 5-6 and Grades 7-9), the emphasis on formative and internal assessment continues but summative results are reported on an ordinal scale from 1 to 5 and there are external examinations at the end of each of the cycles.