Reception baseline trial will take place in September

The Department for Education is also considering whether any information from the assessment will be shared with schools and parents, as it develops and trials the baseline.

This information has been confirmed in new guidance for schools, Reception baseline assessment: what schools need to know, which sets out the government’s plans for baseline, including the timeline for development.

The new baseline is being developed by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), including trialling, piloting and the first two statutory years of delivering it from September 2020.

The DfE  said it will be inviting a sample of schools to take part in trialling the new assessment in the autumn.

All schools with Reception classes will be invited to take part in the national pilot of the assessment, which will take place during the 2019/20 academic year.

The guidance also gives more information on what the assessment will look like for children.
It says, ‘The new reception baseline assessment will be short (approximately 20 minutes), interactive and practical, covering language and communication, early mathematics and (subject to trialling) self-regulation. It will use age-appropriate resources that children can handle and manipulate.’

It goes on to say that the assessment will reflect ‘familiar foundation-stage practice and encourage positive interaction between the teacher/ teaching assistant and the pupil. There will be no need for children to prepare for the baseline assessment, either in a pre-school setting or at home, and in most cases pupils should not be aware that they are being assessed.’

The baseline ‘should not replace the good practice of schools liaising with early years settings to gather and share information on the children starting Reception’.

Children will not ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ the assessment - it will provide a snapshot of where they are when they start school in Reception.

It also says that the intention is that the baseline will be accessible to ‘the vast majority of children’, and that most children with special education needs or disabilities, or who have English as an additional language will be able to take part in the assessment.