England’s leading early years organisations have united with
teaching unions in opposing the September 2015 introduction of Baseline
Assessment.
In response to the government’s announcement on approved
Baseline Assessment providers leading organisations, including the Save
Childhood Movement, the Pre-school Learning Alliance, The British Association
for Early Childhood Education (Early Education), TACTYC:The Association for
Professional Development in Early Years and the National Association for
Primary Education (NAPE) have launched a new joint campaign, Better without
Baseline, opposing the introduction. They have been joined by the National
Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) –
which between them represent the majority of primary teachers in England.
The campaign is also supported by leading academics,
including Dr David Whitebread, Senior Lecturer in the Psychology of Education,
University of Cambridge, and Dr Pam Jarvis, Senior Lecturer, Institute of
Childhood and Education, Leeds Trinity University. Other high-profile figures
who have voiced their opposition to the plans include: Wendy Scott, OBE,
President of TACTYC; Professor Cathy Nutbrown [Chair of The Nutbrown Review
into Qualifications for Early Years workers]; Sue Palmer, literacy expert and
author of Toxic Childhood; Dr Richard House, Founding Fellow of The Critical
Institute and children’s authors Philip Pullman and Michael Rosen.
A Change.org petition against the tests has already attracted
more than 6,500 signatures.
Despite considerable expert opposition, and against the
recommendations of the government’s own consultation process, the schemes are
being introduced as an accountability measure to ‘help school effectiveness’ by
scoring each pupil at the start of reception.
Schools were initially asked to choose from a list of six
approved commercial providers, which have now been reduced to three. Although
the tests will remain optional, the campaign is concerned that there has been
significant pressure on headteachers to adopt a baseline scheme to mitigate
against the risk of punitive measures if their schools do not reach the
government’s raised floor standards when the Reception cohort reaches the end
of Key Stage 2. It also queries the statistical comparability and validity of
such different approaches.
Although some schemes take a more observational approach,
the joint alliance fundamentally disagrees with their use as tools of school
accountability.
The DfE requires that the assessments be carried out for all
children within six weeks of starting Reception, on a “pass/fail” basis for
each scoring item, and with a narrow set of results being condensed to a single
score. The alliance questions the validity and predictive value of the results,
and is concerned about teacher time being diverted away from helping children
with settling in and learning. Opponents of baseline assessment also question
the value for money of the scheme, which is expected to cost around £4 million.
Similar baseline tests were introduced by the Labour
government in 1997 and abandoned in 2002 because it was an “ineffective and
damaging policy” (Cathy Nutbrown, The Conversation, Jan, 2015). They were also
introduced by Wales in 2011 and withdrawn in 2012 as “time consuming,
ill-thought through and denied children and teachers essential teaching time”
(NUT comment 2012)
Under current plans, the statutory Early Years Foundation
Stage Profile (EYFSP), which is not a test but a rounded assessment of
children’s development based on observation over time, will become optional
from September 2016. Members of the alliance believe that the loss of this data
will:
1) undermine the Study of Early Education and Development
(SEED) project, introduced by this government to assess the longer term impact
of early years experiences
2) 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
3) compromise the longitudinal data needed for the
government to assess the impact of the Early Years Pupil Premium, and
4) remove one of the few available indicators used by Ofsted
to measure the effectiveness of children’s centres
The campaign now has a new website
www.betterwithoutbaseline.org.uk and petition, and is calling for the support
of parents and teachers in challenging government policymaking that fails to
respond to the recommendations of democratic consultation, and that continues
to prioritise school accountability over the best interests of the child.
QUOTES
“Baseline Assessment is a bad policy, badly implemented. The
DfE promised schools that by 3rd June they would know who their providers were,
so that on 1stSeptember they could begin assessments. Schools have only just
been told. At the same time, the TES reports that the DfE is considering
changing the way in which ‘progress’ is measured. Out would go baseline assessment at ages 4/5.
In would come a new baseline – in the form of the restoration of SATs at key
Stage 1. Amid such incoherence and uncertainty the case for baseline assessment
gets weaker by the day.”
National Union of Teachers (NUT)
“Baseline assessment does not support learning, in fact, it
takes teachers away from teaching and so wastes learning time. It is not in the
interests of young children, whose learning and other developmental needs are
better identified – over time – by well-qualified early years practitioners who
observe and interact with young children as they play.”
Professor Cathy Nutbrown, The Conversation, Jan 2015
“The difference between 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds as a
percentage of life experience is one fifth – which equates to testing a 10 year
old against an 8 year old and finding the 8 year old ‘wanting’ in some way. Or
even finding a 20 year old lacking in adult life skills as compared to a 25
year old, or, at the other end of the scale, expecting a healthy 80 year old to
be no different in any way to a healthy 64 year old.”
Dr Pam Jarvis, Leeds Trinity University, Too Much Too Soon
Campaign
“The Association of Teachers and Lecturers is very worried
that the new baseline testing of four and five year olds will undermine these
children’s transition to school, by reducing our children to data points on
spreadsheets. Of course teachers will assess children as they start school, in
order to plan learning that supports and challenges each individual child.
However, this new national baseline system has been designed to provide
numerical scores rather than useful information for teaching. Nicky Morgan
assured teachers before the election that she would give ‘more notice’ of any
changes to assessment and accountability measures. Fewer than four weeks before
the end of term is surely not enough time for teachers to prepare for tests
which will be the first experience of school for many children, the results of
which will define their journeys through school. Baseline is a bad policy,
poorly implemented.
Nansi Ellis (Assistant General Secretary), ATL
“Unlike the existing early years assessment – the Early
Years Foundation Stage Profile – the majority of the baseline tests that have
been approved by government have a narrow focus on language, literacy and
mathematics, with little or no reference to other fundamental skills such as
physical development, and personal, social and emotional development. Equally
concerning is the fact that most of the tests are computer- or tablet-based,
and rely heavily on a ‘tick-box’ approach to assessment. Early learning should
be about much more than just those skills that are easy to measure. To
introduce an assessment that is more concerned with collecting data to compare
and rank schools than it is with supporting child development is to do our
children a grave disservice.”
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning
Alliance.
