A new requirement for schools to carry out the Reception baseline assessment digitally could hit stretched budgets and put some pupils at a disadvantage, leaders are warning.
Schools will need two devices to carry out the Reception baseline assessment from 2024, under changes announced by the Department for Education this week.
The Reception baseline assessment (RBA), designed to measure pupils’ English and maths skills when they start primary school, became compulsory in 2021.
And from September 2024, the government has announced that schools will need two devices with a minimum screen size of 9.7 inches for some questions in the assessment, as it moves to a partly digital approach.
One device will be used “by the practitioner to administer the assessment”, while pupils “will need to use a separate touchscreen device to respond to some of the questions”, the guidance states.
But Tiffnie Harris, primary and data specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Not all schools will already have the required devices and this will have implications on budgets, especially as no separate funding has been made available.”
Instead, the DfE has pointed schools towards its ‘get help buying for schools’ service.
Ms Harris said that the union was also concerned that the assessment could ”unfairly disadvantage pupils who have not had previous access to these devices before starting school”.
“We are continuing to make this case to the Standards and Testing Agency,” she told Tes.
The DfE has said that the assessment “will remain interactive and retain the use of physical resources for other questions” and the changes support “accessibility and aligns with developments in classroom practice”.
And it has said that schools should consider how many devices they require, considering their number of Reception classes and staff.
The DfE has also said that schools must ensure their devices meet the criteria outlined in this guidance to successfully administer the RBA from the academic year 2024-25.
Sarah Hannafin, senior policy adviser for school leaders’ union NAHT, said if schools are required to supply an additional particular device “then there should be a fund available from which they can claim the cost, because this is specifically to deliver a statutory assessment”.
As things stand, the DfE needs to be clear that “schools can claim for this device” and also “where they can claim from”, she said.
She added that, while many schools will have suitable devices for the RBA, “many may not have one”, or may have devices that do not meet the requirements.
Ms Hannafin said that “tight” budgets meant it was “unreasonable” to tell schools that they need to spend money in order to deliver a statutory assessment.
She added that approaches “have to be tested properly”, looking at “how changes might work”.
Ms Hannafin said that the DfE had started trialling the approach and that this was ongoing.
The RBA is made up of a short series of questions put to pupils by teachers in a one-to-one set-up that is meant to be as relaxed and informal as possible.
There is no pass or fail, nor a score for pupils. The data is instead held by the DfE to be used in seven years’ time, when it can be compared with Sats outcomes to measure the impact a school made on a child’s learning.
