Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 8 March 2021 to Question 158900, how data that is collected via Reception Baseline Assessments for four year olds will be used to measure whether children have caught up on expected learning during the covid-19 outbreak; and if he will make a statement.

The reception baseline assessment (RBA) will assess all children on entry to primary school to enable a new progress measure to be created at the end of Key Stage 2 that takes into account the progress made by pupils throughout their time in primary school.

Data from the RBA is intended to be used solely for analysis concerned with the primary accountability progress measure and will not be used to measure whether children have caught up on education lost during the COVID-19 outbreak. The new progress measure will, however, recognise more clearly schools doing well with a challenging intake, including those who have been more affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Following the RBA, teachers will receive a series of short, narrative statements on how each child performed, which will assist them in understanding where pupils are starting from and can be used to inform teaching alongside other in-school assessments.