We’ve seen a couple of important steps forward on primary assessment this week. Much is still to be done, of course, from a very challenging starting point, but real progress nonetheless, borne out of constructive dialogue and with the opportunity for more to come. This is a dialogue in which all unions and associations have played a strong part.
One important gain concerned writing teaching assessment, which allows me to say something I’ve been longing to say for a while: the writing is on the wall for secure fit.
Having got that off my chest I wanted to focus on what I suspect is at once the most pleasing and the most controversial part of the proposals: the suggestion that we end statutory assessment at key stage one... in return for a reception baseline.
Let’s be clear, we cannot hold schools accountable for progress without some form of baseline. The alternative is pure attainment, which would be awful. We can’t get rid of all accountability, so I think the question is not whether we have a baseline. but when.
The current baseline is in year two, for seven-year-olds. It implicitly ignores what I consider to be some of the most important years of a child’s education; we erase all that work from our consideration. It punishes schools who invest in early intervention. And it creates unwelcome pressure on very young children. I would prefer an earlier baseline.
Does this not transfer the pressure to even younger children? I don’t think so. We are not, surely, against assessment per se. My children were weighed and measured from the day they were born and I was glad of it. If they had not received some form of assessment on entry to primary school I would have been horrified. The uses of quizzes and tests for formative assessment are perfectly natural.
What most people are worried by is high-stakes testing: tests and assessments with unpleasant consequences. We worry about these for all age groups for a number of reasons: they create stress for pupils; they create stress for teachers. Equally important, they distort what happens inside schools to focus on what is tested rather than all the things that might be important.
It is high-stakes assessment which is harmful and distorting. I do not believe that a reception baseline can be a high stakes test for either pupils or teachers. The incentive is not to maximise their scores; no one is going to be coached or pressured into performing; no time is going to be wasted preparing for this.
To be fair to reception teachers, I can’t see any of them suppressing results either - they want their pupils to show what they are capable of. I think we’ll get as close as possible to a fair measure with minimum distortion or pressure.
This would mean that, for the first time in a long time, we may have reduced the volume of high stakes assessment during the primary phase. At the very least, this is worthy of serious consideration.
There are other concerns about the baseline, in terms of reliability, design and content. There are issues about pupil mobility. These are worth raising during the consultation. There are also two essential features that the NAHT will be holding out for.
The first is that this must not be used to measure performance in early years or hold early years practitioners to account. It should be designed to make this impossible. I think one major concern with a reception baseline is that it might encourage too academic and formal a curriculum too early. This can and should be prevented.
The second concern is that we may be labelling children from a very early age when much of their development is still ahead of them. The baseline must not be used to predict or track individual pupil progress or performance. From my perspective, once the baseline has been completed the data should be locked into a time capsule and not opened again until year six in order to generate a progress measure for the school as a whole.
You could talk me into sharing the results with reception staff for the purposes of individual diagnostics but no outside agency should have access to school level raw data at this stage. No agency should be able to demand to see it or use it, including Ofsted.
These two suggestions, which I think are compatible with the government’s proposals, might go a long way to shaping a baseline that works for schools and children. We’ve had a difficult few years on assessment to put it mildly. Mistakes have been made. But we may have passed through the eye of the needle and be heading, slowly and painfully, to a better place.
Much remains to be done. A good starting point would be a vigorous response to this consultation.
Russell Hobby is general secretary of the NAHT headteachers’ union. He tweets as @russellhobby
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