Primary Education: Assessments

(asked on 25th February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether it is his policy that data collected from the Reception Baseline Assessment will (a) be black-boxed for seven years for the purposes of demonstrating whole-school progress from Reception to the end of year 6 and (b) be used as a diagnostic tool to assess the effects of covid-19 on young children.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 8th March 2021

The purpose of the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) is to measure the progress schools make with their pupils. The data from the assessment is intended to be used solely for analysis concerned with the primary accountability progress measure. The data, including numerical scores, will not be made available to external bodies, including schools, teachers, pupils or parents/carers. Teachers will receive a series of short, narrative statements on how each child did at that time, which can be used to inform teaching.

The Department has always been clear that the RBA is not a diagnostic assessment and should not be used to track or group individual children or hold early years settings to account, including in the context of COVID-19.

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