Call to scrap the Reception Baseline

The assessment for four-year-olds is due to go ahead in the autumn term.

The open letter has been organised by campaign group More Than A Score who argue that given the ‘unprecedented disruption from Covid-19, the priority must be to give these small children a sound start to school.’ 

The Baseline should be cancelled because children will have missed ‘a great deal of the necessary practical and emotional preparation including transition visits and, potentially, a whole term or more in nursery,’ they say.

The biggest teaching union, the National Education Union (NEU), has backed the call with joint general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted signing their names.

Other signatories include Beatrice Merrick, chief executive of Early Education, Professor Dominic Wyse, president of the British Educational Research Association, and Elaine Bennett, co-founder of Keeping Early Years Unique.

More Than A Score said that the letter has also been signed by hundreds of headteachers, teachers, academics from 30 universities, early years practitioners, parents and child psychologists.

A number of opposition MPs, including the new shadow education secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey and shadow early years minister Tulip Siddiq, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, are also signatories.

The letter states, ‘We are writing to call for the immediate cancellation of plans for the introduction of Reception Baseline Assessment in the Autumn term. This will reassure the hundreds of thousands of parents of four-year-olds who will be starting school in the coming year that their children’s welfare is being prioritised, and will show that Government understands that young children cannot begin to learn until they feel safe, secure and settled.’

It goes on to say, ‘The Government’s baseline assessment process will be a huge distraction, especially in terms of the extra workload for teachers at a time when their main focus should be building relationships and giving children the opportunity to catch up on the many learning opportunities they will have missed.’

According to recent research from the National Education Union, 83 per cent of teachers said carrying out the Baseline increased their workload.

The letter continues, ‘The Government should trust early years teachers to carry out their own formative baselines when children start school – as they always have done. Teachers can then plan their teaching based on detailed and useful information from each child, including information from parents and nurseries, rather than on a limited, standardised set of data which, as the Government’s own report states, is not designed to be used for diagnostic purposes and therefore provides no meaningful information for teachers.’