Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance is issued to head teachers by her Department on parent withdrawal of a child from statutory assessments.

Guidance for head teachers on the process for considering whether pupils should be entered for end of Key Stage statutory assessments is provided in the ‘2017 Assessment and Reporting Arrangements’ for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. This was published by the Standards and Testing Agency in October 2016.

These documents set out the statutory requirements for National Curriculum assessment and reporting for the 2016 to 2017 academic year. They make it clear that the responsibility for making the final decision about whether it is appropriate for an individual pupil to be entered for statutory assessments resides with that pupil’s head teacher. The head teacher should report their decision to the pupil’s parents.