New research commissioned by the National Education and
carried out by University College London, has exposed the
problems of the government’s new Reception Baseline Assessment
(RBA) for assessing four-year-olds on entry to their primary
schools.
Research into the 2019 Pilot of Reception Baseline
Assessment (RBA), which combines a survey of
teachers’ views with case studies of schools involved in the
September 2019 pilot of Baseline, found
that:
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Nearly 50% of teachers believe that Baseline has a
negative impact on children – some children showed signs of
anxiety and discomfort; they were ‘scared of getting it wrong’.
One teacher from a case study school commented, ‘I would worry
about those children who are going to struggle. And how quickly
do you stop the test? Do you actually go through with it or do
you just click ‘no’, ‘no’, ‘no’, because you know they can't do
it or they can't concentrate?’
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80% of teachers do not think that the Baseline test,
which is intended to last for 20 minutes, provides an accurate
picture of children’s current attainment.
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85% say their school’s own on-entry assessment of
children provides them with better information than
Baseline.
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77% do not think Baseline gave them useful information
about their pupils which they wouldn’t otherwise have had. Many
commented it was a ‘tick-box’ exercise which devalued teachers’
professional judgment about children and their learning needs.
As one teacher said, ‘It just seems like a monumental waste of
a week of a practitioner’s time.’
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69% say Baseline has not helped to develop positive
relationships with pupils. Government presents the test as
brief and ‘light touch’, but in reality it consumes teacher
time and interferes with the settling-in period so important to
children’s first experience of school. ‘Settling new children
is a fine art,’ said one teacher, ‘and is not a time that can
be disrupted by unnecessary tests.’
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83% say carrying out Baseline increased their workload.
In order not to interfere with early experience of reception
class, some teachers administered the baseline test in their
own time. ‘Having to use all of my PPA time to complete the
Baseline as I cannot leave the other 29 new children with one
TA [teaching assistant]. This means the work I would have
completed in PPA time is being done at lunchtime or after
school. After completing the Baseline I will still have to do
our usual on-entry assessments.’
Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the
NEU, said: ‘The government wants to introduce
yet another test to primary schools. It is not doing this to
support children’s learning but to produce a score by which it
claims it will be possible to measure the quality of education.
It ignores the evidence which is stacking up against Baseline.
The experts of the British Educational Research Association have
said that it is not possible to test 4-year-olds and get reliable
data. Now, in this report, teachers’ lack of trust in Baseline is
all too clear. The government persists in spending millions on
assessment systems for which there is no evidence of value, when
teachers and parents are crying out for serious investment in
early years education.’
Researcher Guy Roberts-Holmes,
commented on the classroom environment created by Baseline:
‘Baseline assessment is at odds with what we know about child
development. Instead of building confidence and trusting
relationships through active play, children are forced to sit
still for up to half an hour to complete an inappropriate
screen-based, tightly-scripted literacy and numeracy test. For
some four-year-olds, trying to settle into their first experience
of school, it creates inappropriate stress, emotional upset and
uncertainty. Contrary to claims that children don't know they're
being tested, we found that children are well aware that they are
taking a scripted computer test, and that they have a sense of
whether they've performed well or badly. There is a danger that
they will then label themselves as good or bad learners. There
are strong grounds here for parents to be concerned.’
Editor’s Note
Attached: “I can’t read... I don’t know... I can’t
do it... What does that mean? When can I go? Can I play yet?” -
Research into the 2019 Pilot of Reception Baseline
Assessment (RBA). UCL Institute
of Education. (by Guy Roberts-Holmes, Siew Fung Lee, Diana Sousa,
Emma Jones).
