New statutory assessments for primary pupils with complex disabilities are to be introduced, despite fears over workload.

The new assessments will be based on the “seven aspects of engagement” and will replace P scales 1 to 4, which have been used to assess pupils with complex needs.

But today an official evaluation of pilots of the new assessments reported that schools found the workload involved “challenging”.

The assessment approach was recommended by the Rochford Review, which recommended creating a statutory duty for schools to assess pupils with complex needs on responsiveness, curiosity, discovery, anticipation, persistence, initiation and investigation.

The approach was piloted in a project designed to explore the use of the seven aspects of engagement as a method of summative learning. The pilot project ran in 55 schools from January to July 2018.

The evaluation report of this pilot project states: “Many schools found the workload associated with implementing the seven aspects approach to be challenging and reported that the accumulated number of staff hours spent implementing the approach was very high.”

It added that many pilot schools had concerns about how they would manage the workload if it became statutory for them to use the approach to assess all appropriate pupils - rather than the small number of pupils covered by the pilot.

The evaluation said that overall many schools found the seven aspects approach extremely useful for formative assessment, but were uncertain about its usefulness for summative assessment.

“If it was to be rolled out nationally, local authority representatives also highlighted the need for intensive resourcing in terms of extra staff training and moderation to enable a consistent interpretation across local authorities,” said the report.

Around 7,000 pupils in primary schools have such complex needs that it is inappropriate to measure their attainment with national curriculum tests.

Nick Gibb, school standards minister, said: “This is a significant milestone in our drive to make sure every child - even those with the most complex needs - receives the highest standard of education and care.

“We have already introduced education, health and care plans that are tailored to children. This new approach to assessment will make sure that individual focused approach is replicated in the classroom.”

An expert group, led by Diane Rochford, is now due to refine the approach based on the findings of the pilot, ready for it to be introduced in all state-funded schools that have pupils not in subject-specific study from 2020.