MPs challenge Government over Reception Baseline legislation
Katy Morton
Monday, March 16, 2020
Cross-party MPs have argued that a new law, being introduced in Parliament in the coming weeks, keeps 'parents in the dark' about how their child's data from the Reception Baseline assessment will be used.
According to the MPs, the legislation does not provide an opt-out for parents who do not want information about their child included in a Government database. It also fails to provide information about how the Government could use that data, including selling it to commercial third parties.
The legislation would come into force in September when the Reception Baseline assessment (RBA) becomes statutory. Under the RBA, children will be tested on English and maths in the first six weeks of starting Reception.
The MPs, Labour's Jack Dromey, Caroline Lucas of the Green Party and Liberal Democrat Layla Moran, have written to the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), the Department for Education (DfE) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), demanding transparency in the legislation about how results from the assessment will be used and calling for parents to be given the right to withdraw their children from taking part.
In the letter they state, ‘We share the concerns of the campaign group More Than A Score about the introduction of RBA. Parents should be able to exercise their data protection rights, on behalf of their children. If they do not consent for their child to be assessed under current arrangements for RBA - with their data collected and distributed widely - parents should be able to opt their child out.
‘We would also like to echo concerns raised by the National Education Union in their response to the statutory consultation. It cannot be right that teachers and teaching assistants who administer RBA will be put in the position of collecting data for purposes that have not been fully clarified to them and which may be objectionable to the parents of the children they teach.’
Comments
Jack Dromey, Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, said, ‘This is the Government collecting massive amounts of data by stealth and then doing what it wants with it. In the coming year alone, the Government will collect name, age and academic test result data on over 700,000 four-year-olds. This is Big Brother in action, and we have to stop it in its tracks.’
Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, added, ‘The Government is planning to keep parents in the dark about the data it’s collecting on their children. We want to shine a light on this mass infringement of parents’ rights.’
Nancy Stewart from campaign group More Than A Score ,said, ‘Parents need to know what will be happening to their children when they start school. The information collected from the nation’s four-year-olds will not be shared with parents or teachers.
'The Government has not even explained how it will be used to measure schools in seven years’ time. Why should we trust them? The RBA is a pointless and damaging exercise in useless data collection. The Government should listen to parents, teachers, heads and experts and abandon its plans.’
