As one of the main factors guiding learning and personal growth (Grion & Restiglian, 2019), assessment plays a central role both in an individual's schooling and in teachers' practice. Assessment experiences can make a difference in acquiring critical and reflective competence as early as childhood.

In addition to the better known approaches of assessment, such as summative and formative in which the teacher is the main actor in the assessment processes (Grion & Serbati, 2019; Grion and Restiglian, 2019; Nigris & Agrusti, 2021); recent research (Lipnevich et al, 2021) point to the benefits of assessment for learning (AfL) and sustainable assessment (SA) (Grion, Restiglian & Slaviero, 2025). AfL and SA are characterised by the active involvement of students in assessment processes and the use of appropriate feedback that promotes learning (Sambell, Brown & Race, 2019).

Despite the theoretical framework outlined in educational and assessment research, no extensive national or regional studies of assessment practices are employed in Italian schools.

This research's purpose was to explore the assessment practices stated in the Three-Year Educational Offer Plans (PTOF) and Self-Assessment Reports (RAV) of preschools and first-cycle schools in Italy. The PTOF is a fundamental document provided for by Italian law (L. 107/2015) that each educational institutions are required to develop every three years. The document constitutes the school's cultural and design identity and explicitly outlines its educational purposes, general objectives, didactic, curricular, extracurricular, and educational activities, as well as the resources provided to achieve them. The RAV is a self-assessment document introduced by Presidential Decree 80 of 2013 and aimed at providing a representation of the school through an analysis of its functioning. It also constitutes the basis for identifying the new development priorities that guide the school improvement plan.

The questions that guided the research were:
- What conceptualisations, tools, and assessment practices emerge from the schools' statements in the PTOF and RAV documents?
- How do these concepts and practices relate to the current theoretical models that educational research proposes about assessment in school?

To answer the relevant research questions, the PTOF and RAV documents of the 362 State Comprehensive Institutes in the Veneto Region were analysed. The documents were subjected to a qualitative content analysis using the Atlas.ti 24 software (Braun & Clarke, 2012).
An initial analysis of the documents shows that although assessment is outlined as a continuous and integrated process for learning and is oriented towards educational success, the implemented assessment practices are mainly carried out by teachers with little student participation. The assessment tools most frequently cited in the documents are, in fact, grids, rubrics, written and oral tests (for first-cycle schools) and occasional or systematic observations (for preschools).

These initial results, therefore, indicate that although it is now known at a theoretical level that assessment practices acquire value in a collaborative dimension, this is still not fully realised in practice.

Keywords: Assessment practices, qualitative analysis, preschool, primary school, middle school.