News

Baseline goes ahead amid criticism from teachers

Performance tables Government policy Baseline assessment Pupil attainment & progress
A highly critical report against Reception Baseline Assessment has made little impact on the Department for Education, which has confirmed that national roll-out will go ahead this September. Pete Henshaw reports

From September, all new pupils will take the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA), which is to replace SATs at the end of year 2.

Plans for a national roll-out have been confirmed after the Department for Education published its validity report based on trials that took place in around 7,000 schools last term (DfE, 2020).

The DfE says that the pilot “confirmed that the new assessments provide an accurate assessment of a pupil’s starting point”.

However, while the DfE has received support for the roll-out from the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), the National Education Union (NEU) remains staunchly opposed.

A parallel report commissioned by the NEU has also been published, which it says “goes far deeper into the effects and experience of the test”.

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