Reception teachers say the government’s baseline assessments make pupils anxious, and that young children being tested are “scared of getting it wrong”, according to research from the NEU teaching union.
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The Reception baseline assessments test the maths and language skills of every four- and five-year-old starting school, but research on teachers’ views of the 2019 pilot of the tests revealed nearly 50 per cent of respondents believed the tests had a negative impact on young pupils.
Teachers reported that pupils were “scared of getting it wrong”.
One teacher said, “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?”
And 8 out of 10 teachers felt the baseline tests did not assess pupils’ current levels of attainment accurately, while 85 per cent said their schools’ own on-entry assessment of pupils gave them better information than baseline.
Data was collected through an online survey of early years and primary teachers with 1,285 respondents and in-depth interviews in six case study primary schools during September to November 2019.
Many teachers reported feeling that the assessments were simply a “tick-box” exercise that devalued the professional judgement of teachers.
“It just seems like a monumental waste of a week of a practitioner’s time,” one respondent said.
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 four-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.”
Nearly 7 in 10 of those surveyed - 69 per cent - said the tests had not helped them to establish positive relationships with pupils. While the government has presented the tests as “light touch”, teachers reported that they were time consuming, increased their workload and disrupted the settling-in period for young pupils in their first weeks of school.
“Settling new children is a fine art, and is not a time that can be disrupted by unnecessary tests,” one teacher reported.
A further 83 per cent said carrying out baseline increased their workload, with some teachers administering the test in their own time so as not to disrupt learning.
“Having to use all of my PPA [planning] time to complete the baseline as I cannot leave the other 29 new children with one TA,” one teacher wrote.
“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.”
Nancy Stewart, from campaign group More Than A Score, added: “Teachers agree with parents, headteachers and education experts: reception baseline assessment is a waste of money, resources and precious teaching time in the first few weeks of school.
“Our research demonstrates that almost two-thirds of parents oppose testing four- and five-year-olds when they start school and 86 per cent of heads hold negative views about the government’s plans.
“The government is increasingly isolated and should scrap these tests now.”
The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.
