DfE promotes baseline assessment in new video

28 February 2019

The Department for Education has uploaded a new YouTube video on the Reception baseline assessment explaining how it will work.

It comes just days before schools can sign up to take part in a pilot of the controversial assessment, starting this autumn.

The video (see below), posted on the Standards and Testing Agency’s YouTube channel, features a Reception year class and teaching staff.

It explains that the RBA [Reception baseline assessment] is ‘not a test’, there will be ‘no pass mark’ and it will ‘not be used to label children’.

It claims, ‘It will be ‘similar to the on-entry assessments many schools already carry out.’

Also, it says that ‘children should find the assessment engaging because it will be carried out in a familiar environment.’

The video points out that the ‘footage does not reflect the activities in the assessment'.

Jan Dubiel, national director of Early Excellence, called the video ‘misleading and dishonest’.

He told Nursery World, ‘The video states that most Reception teachers assess in this way, but, working with thousands of primary schools, we know this not to be the case. If so, why would so many teachers be against the assessment? It also says it is not a test.’

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