Editor's view - Baseline wrangles

Disagreements and concerns have surrounded Reception Baseline Assessment for years, over several attempts to implement it.

Now in the middle of the third go, the temperature is rising once more, with the National Education Union releasing findings from its research carried out with teachers on the same day that the Department for Education confirmed the go-ahead along with a report claiming that RBA was an accurate measure of children’s starting points. 

The NEU’s research found that around 80 per cent of teachers said that the RBA did not provide an accurate picture of children’s attainment. Worse, nearly 50 per cent said that doing the test had a negative effect on children who were just starting school.

The findings were not totally negative, with some teachers saying that children were excited and enthusiastic to take part.

However, the majority view among teachers and early years experts remains that the Baseline is a waste of time and money.

Still standing with the DfE is the National Association of Head Teachers, which favours Baseline as a route to getting rid of the much-loathed Key Stage 1 SATs. 

Surely it makes little sense, says the NAHT, to take a baseline measure for progress midway through the primary years, ignoring work done in the first few years of school.

A fair point, perhaps. But then does it make more sense to implement a baseline measure part way through the Early Years Foundation Stage?

If the EYFS is recognised as a valid stage in its own right, surely any assessment should come at the end of this – and we already have the EYFS Profile, of course.

RBA must not be used as a way to split Reception from the EYFS.