Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of ending compulsory written national curriculum assessments for key stage one students.

End of key stage 1 national curriculum tests and teacher assessments have been non-statutory since the 2023/24 academic year.

Following the 2017 consultation on primary assessment, a decision was made by the previous administration to make these assessments optional to reduce the overall number of tests children have to take in primary school and move the baseline for primary school progress measures from key stage 1 to reception. The Standards and Testing Agency continues to develop test papers for schools to use on an optional basis as part of their ongoing assessment of pupils.

The phonics screening check is the only statutory assessment administered to pupils in key stage 1. This is a short, light-touch assessment which assesses pupils’ ability to decode and read words using phonics.

In respect of future assessment policy and associated arrangements, the government has established an independent curriculum and assessment review, covering key stages 1 to 5, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE, an expert in education policy. The national curriculum assessments administered to primary pupils are in scope of this review, which will look at whether the current assessment system can be improved.