Each standards file comprises a number of pieces of work from individual pupils in schools directly involved in the piloting phases of APP. Some of the evidence is written and some of it is in the form of notes made by the teacher when working with the pupils, or when observing them in class. In the mathematics standards files, there are also summary notes made by the teacher about what the range of work demonstrates about a pupil's mathematical attainment. For mathematics and reading and writing, the level of annotation on the work presented in the standards files is far more than a classroom teacher would be expected to record. The standards files have a large amount of annotation as they need to stand alone and the classroom teacher is not available to discuss what the evidence amounts to and what additionally they know about a pupil's work.

Background information about the context of the work has been kept to a minimum since each collection has been selected primarily to exemplify attainment at a particular National Curriculum level and in a relevant year group, rather than as an example of recommended curriculum practice. In some cases, the pupil's work in a file represents that pupil's entire output during the period; in others, it is a small sample. In each case, the criterion for the size of the collection is the same: how much is sufficient to support a teacher in making a level judgement against the AFs?