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Since 2002, Flanders has introduced a programme of national assessments as part of the system of external quality control. In the present symposium, the Flemish system of national assessments is presented from different points of view. In a first presentation, Verhaeghen et al. present the national assessments from the point of view of the ministery of education. They argue why the system of national assessments was introduced, and show which purposes of quality control it can fulfill. In a second presentation, De Corte describes the national assessment of mathematics in primary education. The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate the different research steps taking to determine how many pupils reach the attainment targets and to show how the conclusions of an assessment can be interesting from a substantive point of view. In a third presentation, Gielen et al. discuss how differences between schools can be studied within a national assessment and how these differences can be accounted for by background characteristics of students, teachers, and schools. Finally, Janssen et al. show how performance assessments can supplement the results of a paper-and-pencil based national assessment by giving examples from environmental studies –nature, biology, and French as a foreign language.