Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they plan to include in the baseline assessment of children starting primary school being trialled in September.

The reception baseline is designed to assess children’s knowledge and understanding in areas typical for children at the start of reception, such as recognising letters and counting numbers.

The final list of three approved reception baselines was published on 1 July 2015. The approved baselines offer different approaches, formats and styles, including computer-based assessments and teacher assessments similar to that already used by teachers and early years practitioners. Schools are able to choose their preferred reception baseline, with first use in September 2015.

The reception baseline is being introduced to support a new progress measure for accountability purposes. It will capture the starting point from which progress will be measured up to a child’s key stage 2 results. This approach would enable us, from 2022, to recognise the excellent work of schools in the first three years of a child’s time at school, as the reception baseline will help schools to show the progress pupils make from the moment they start school.

In the autumn term of 2015/16 we will be conducting both a comparability study of the three reception baselines and a quality assurance study to help inform future decision-making about the reception baseline.