Better Without Baseline Coalition - July 2016

Better Without Baseline Coalition - July 2016

BETTER WITHOUT BASELINE COALITION - JULY 2016



Response to the Education Select Committee Inquiry on Primary Assessment

The Better Without Baseline coalition is a group of early years organisations and teaching unions which formed to express their concerns about the government’s proposals for baseline assessment in the reception year, and its unintended negative impact on children in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The coalition is continuing to work together to offer its collective expertise on ensuring future proposals for accountability in primary schools are devised which are compatible with the assessment principles of the EYFS. Members of the coalitionwhich have endorsed this response include:

  • The British Association for Early Childhood Education (Early Education)
  • National Union of Teachers (NUT)
  • Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (PACEY)
  • Save Childhood Movement
  • TACTYC: the Association for Professional Development in Early Years

Some others have responded individually.

We welcomed the government’s decision not to proceed with the planned baseline assessment system for school accountability purposes in 2016-17 and to retain the EYFS profile until at least 2017-18. The problems with the proposed baseline assessments – which any future proposal to introduce testing before the end of the Reception year would have to prove it could overcome, were that it was:

  • Unreliable – Most children at such a young age will not be able to show their true abilities in a test or assessment taken out of the context of familiar relationships and practical experiences.
  • Disruptive – We know that young children need smooth transitions and supportive relationships. By taking teachers away from their class group in the crucial early days in the reception year, the time taken to assess up to 30 children compromised vital early teacher-child relationships and resulted in a focus on the assessments rather than the individual children starting school.
  • Statistically Invalid-Some assessments were based on narrow checklists of basic skills and knowledge, which did not take account of the different ways and rates at which children learn and develop, nor of the ability of children to build conceptual understanding and apply their knowledge. The proposed choice for schools about which of several possible assessments to use made meaningful comparisons impossible. Value-added judgements, which would be seven years away, would be unreliable and invalid.
  • Harmful to child wellbeing – Children’s ages on entering the English schooling system can vary by as much as 12 months. Boys and summer-born children are likely to be particularly disadvantaged. Annual entry to school means that a large number of children with very varied prior experience will lose crucial attention to their immediate social, psychological and personal needs as they adjust to a new and challenging experience in their reception class.
  • Harmful to effective practice and therefore to children’s learning and development -The assessments will result in pressure on practitioners to ‘teach to the test’, distorting the curriculum and detracting from the rich physical, exploratory, playful, creative, and intellectual experiences which research shows benefit children in the early years.
  • Harmful to the home-learning environment, parent partnerships and relationships with nurseries-­Parents and nursery staff will be misdirected in terms of the most important markers of their children’s progress and attainment, toward supporting narrow measures rather than engaging in the responsive, playful interactions which best support children’s learning and development. The careful records linked to the EYFS that nurseries send on to school will be devalued.
  • Any loss of Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Profile data wouldundermine the Study of Early Education and Development (SEED) project, introduced by thegovernment to track children’s progress, and damage current work with colleagues in the health and social services who make use of the EYFS Profile in bringing together services for children and families. It would also compromise the longitudinal data needed for the government to assess the impact of the Early Years Pupil Premium.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) was carefully developed over time and offers a tried and tested basis for understanding and supporting children's learning through observation. The EYFS Profile summarises and describes children’s attainment at the end of the EYFS and has been widely acknowledged as providing an effective and holistic basis for evaluating children’s development. As highlighted by Ofsted, it also acknowledges the very important and mutually supportive relationship between early years settings and parents.

We understand the government’s wish to create a fairer accountability system for primary schools, but it is crucial that this should not have a negative and distorting effect on the Early Years Foundation Stage, which differs from the national curriculum for sound reasons relating to children’s development. The EYFS Profile is a key component in accountability for the early years system (which includes the Reception year), and must be retained for that reason. Data from the EYFS Profile is used to evaluate effectiveness of children’s services, early years settings and the reception year in schools, and to target investment and improvement initiatives. The data at the end of the EYFS is also critical in providing evidence of the impact of money spent on the free early years entitlement, as recently queried by the Public Accounts Committee.

We recommend the establishment of a fully transparent, balanced and high profile early years advisory group to represent the sector and provide advice and guidance for government, andare very prepared to contribute to this process. The decision to halt the baseline policy reflects concerns that we raised from the start, which could have been avoided had Ministers engaged more actively in dialogue with the sector about the extensive evidence base on this topic. We believe that by government and the sector working together it should be possible to find solutions that better balance requirements for accountability with the developmental needs and rights of young children.

1 November 2016