What is the Reception Baseline Assessment?

You may or may not be aware that children starting reception in September 2021 will have to sit a ‘baseline assessment’.

This much-contested measure was meant to start last year but was put back due to the pandemic.

Children will be asked questions relating to maths and English in a 20 minute 1:1 session with the teacher.

This will happen in the first 6 weeks of starting school.

The government say that this is the best way to measure the progress that children make in primary school and that pupils won’t be aware of the test.

Many teachers and leaders are opposed to the idea and are calling for the assessment to be scrapped. They say the test is damaging to students, unreliable and will take up valuable time in the settling in period.

As a teacher and parent of a school starter myself,

I think it’s vital that parents are kept informed. I certainly have questions about these measures.

"More than a score" on Instagram have amassed more than 100,000 signatures on their petition so watch this space.

I will being going into more detail about this in my Reception Explained Zoom workshop.

How are you feeling about all of this?

If you have any questions, I’d love to hear from you, just get in touch.

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