Nursery World - Analysis: Schools question need for the new Reception Baseline

Many teachers remain opposed to the Reception Baseline Assessment, which became a legal requirement for those children who started school this September. By Catherine Gaunt

Foxes Nursery at Woodlands Primary. Many children have missed out on time in nursery due to the pandemic leading to head teachers questioning 'the efficacy and validity' of data from the Reception baseline

Thousands of four-year-olds who started school this term are among the first cohort legally required to take the Government’s new Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) in their first few weeks of joining.

The controversial RBA had been due to come into force last September but was postponed by the Department for Education to autumn 2021, due to the ‘challenging circumstances’ schools faced with the Covid pandemic.

While ministers expect the Baseline to be carried out with each child in the first six weeks of starting school in September, in practice many children will have taken it in their very first week because schools are not allowed to teach children before they take the assessment.

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