The government has said it will scrap the statutory moderation of the early years foundation stage profile (EYFSP) by local authorities, despite the “common view” that this should be retained.

Following a consultation on reforms to the EYFS, the Department for Education has said it will “proceed with the government proposal to remove the statutory duty for LAs to externally moderate the EYFSP in 25 per cent of schools each year”.

Consultation: Government told to review how it presents EYFS data

EYFS: Everything you need to know

Viewpoint: Let’s stop arguing over what EYFS learning looks like

This is despite the fact the consultation found:

• The common view from respondents was that statutory moderation of the EYFSP by LAs should be retained.
• The popular view from respondents was that removing statutory moderation of the EYFSP by LAs would not reduce teacher workload. 
• A consistent view was that it is important to retain external moderation to ensure consistency of judgements across all schools and other approaches to moderation should be conducted alongside, and not as an alternative to, an external check.

The government’s consultation response states: “The purpose of the EYFSP is to form a professional dialogue between Reception and Year 1 teachers about an individual child and to inform parents about their child’s development.

“It should not be used as an accountability measure for schools or for teachers and it should not be used to provide a baseline for progress measures.

“However, we know from anecdotal evidence that the statutory moderation process can contribute to perceptions that the EYFSP is a high stakes and high accountability assessment for teachers and schools.

“In light of this, we will proceed with the government proposal to remove the statutory duty for LAs to externally moderate the EYFSP in 25 per cent of schools each year.

“Schools may still wish to moderate internally and with other schools to ensure consistency of judgements and to form part of teachers’ continuing professional development.”

It adds that schools will still be required to submit data from the EYFSP to their local authority, and there will still be a national collection.

However the department “will review the current use of the EYFSP dataset and consider the contexts in which it may no longer be appropriate to use”.

Beatrice Merrick, chief executive of the Early Education charity, said the government’s decision to scrap LA moderation is “yet another sign that they are not listening to the sector”.

“We recognise that views were split on this, but their own analysis shows there was more support for keeping it than scrapping it,” she said. 

“Moderation, when done well, was valued by teachers as a constructive opportunity for professional learning, and one of the few pieces of early years training to which some reception teachers had access.

“With moderation becoming non-statutory, there is a risk that reception teachers become even more isolated from other early years colleagues. There is no suggestion of anything else being offered in its place.”

But Alison Peacock, chief executive officer of the Chartered College of Teaching, said the decision was “a welcome one”.

“It is vital that teachers and early years colleagues are free to spend the majority of their time focusing on leading learning and it is good to see early years practitioners will no longer need to constantly gather and record evidence against the early learning goals to justify their knowledge of each child,” she said.

Ofqual previously warned that the proposal to scrap the statutory requirement for local authorities to externally moderate judgements in 25 per cent of schools could present “risks to the validity of outcomes”.

It said “further consideration of the support for teachers” would be required if the DfE decided to scrap LA moderation.