Teachers brand new tests for four- and five-year-olds 'a waste of time'

Campaigners More Than A Score polled 478 reception class teachers, headteachers and senior leaders in schools about their experiences of the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA).

All children in Reception classes in England must take the RBA within their first few weeks of starting school before the October half-term since it became statutory in September.

The test has been widely criticised by educators, experts and parents with a key concern being the amount of time required - up to 30 minutes per child - to administer it. The survey found that just 6 per cent of respondents believe that the test did not disrupt classroom teaching time. 

Reception teachers who have had to assess up to 30 children per class feel the most strongly about the new assessments. Eighty-eight per cent of those surveyed (178) agree that it is a waste of their time and just 2 percent believe carrying out the test has been a positive experience for teachers.

Eighty-five per cent of Reception teachers believe that the tests are not as useful as their own classroom-based observations.

Key findings:

• Just 1 per cent of teachers and school leaders believe the new tests have been a positive experience for pupils
• 6 per cent believe they did not disrupt teaching time during the settling-in period
• 88 per cent of Reception teachers agree they are a waste of teaching time
• 85 per cent agree they are not as useful as their own observations of children

In many schools, classroom rotas have been changed, or extra support drafted in to cover teachers administering the tests.

As they must be completed by half-term, the time spent has inevitably affected the critical settling-in period for Reception children. Almost half of reception teachers surveyed (43 per cent) believe the process has been stressful for teachers.

Moreover, 8 per cent believe it has also been stressful for children.

The survey results also disprove one of the DfE's justifications for the test, the campaigners say, with just 14 per cent of survey respondents believing the tests were helpful for getting to know children.

They say this is counter to a leaflet for parents which described the RBA as ‘an opportunity for your child to have valuable one-to-one time with their teacher’.

Nancy Stewart, spokesperson for the campaign, said, ‘The first few weeks of school are absolutely critical. This is when teachers rightly spend their time getting to know children supporting children's confidence to flourish in the school environment. It’s simply wrong to disrupt that time with a test whose sole purpose is data collection.’

Dr Victoria Carr, headteacher of Woodlands Primary in Cheshire, who has first-hand experience of administering the RBA, said, ‘These tests add no value to a child’s school experience. Our own observation-based assessments tell us all we need to know about each individual pupil. We’re doing our very best to minimise disruption, but it’s been the last thing teachers and children have needed.”

Meanwhile, parents are also speaking out against the new tests. Justine Stephens in Brighton is mother to five-year-old Rowen. She said, ‘Rowen has been so excited about starting school and I’ve put my trust in her teacher to spend lots of time getting to know her, settling her in and assessing all that she can do. That should be the priority in the first few weeks of school, not a pointless collection of data.’

The Government has said that the data collected by the RBA will be compared with the results of year 6 SATs in seven years’ time to measure a school’s overall progress.

But the campaigners say that it has not provided any information about how a 20-minute test taken at the age of four will be reliably analysed against the results of four days of tests taken at the age of 11.

Meanwhile, parents are also concerned about the tests, with a petition signed by more than 112,000  parents, teachers and campaigners delivered to Downing Street last month.

Brighton mum Justine Stephens, whose daughter Rowen is five, said, ‘Rowen has been so excited about starting school and I’ve put my trust in her teacher to spend lots of time getting to know her, settling her in and assessing all that she can do. That should be the priority in the first few weeks of school, not a pointless collection of data.’

A Department for Education spokesperson said, 'Children need to build vital vocabulary and reading skills in their early education, and it is important to see the progress they make in primary school. The Reception Baseline Assessment enables the department to understand how well schools are supporting pupils with these vital skills.

'Once the assessment is fully rolled out, the more substantial assessments at the end of Year 2 will not be mandatory, reducing the burden on teacher workload during these years.'