Early Years Foundation Stage (Miscellaneous Amendments) and Childcare Fees (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, about SATs in primary schools, but I gently remind him that it was his Government who brought in a whole raft of testing through SATs in our primary sector. Never mind—a sinner reformed and all the rest.

First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for this regret Motion. It is important to assess four and five year-old children in their first few months in school. Children start school in different ways. Some are excited and eager to start to play and learn. Some are shy and nervous at this big change to their lives, and some are very frightened at this big step. Those first few days and first few months—indeed, the first term—are an enormously important time for them to settle into their classroom environment; a time to gradually learn through play and discovery. The reception class teacher and teaching assistants need to get to know the child, work with the child and play with the child. This time of observation and learning is absolutely crucial to a child’s development and critical in the assessment of a child’s needs and development. It is a time for the early identification of any special needs a child may have.

These early weeks and first term are the time not only to get to know the child but to arrange to meet the parents, grandparents and carers, not just at the classroom door, but through home visits. In this way, the teacher can really understand the whole child—their interests and skills, the things they like doing, the things that make them happy and the things that make them unhappy.

Why do I have concerns about reception baseline assessment? The Department for Education says that by giving each child a baseline assessment when the child first starts primary school, schools will not only have a clearer idea of how much progress pupils are making but should be able to identify which children are likely to need extra help.

Children of just four and five already have to contend with the anxiety of starting school and are often daunted by unfamiliar tasks at this stage. Concentration levels may be an issue, particularly for summer-born pupils almost a year younger than their autumn-born peers. It would be good if the Government took a proper look at these children and brought forward proposals on how to support them.

Checks administered on a one-to-one basis are time consuming for teachers as well. At the very time they should be getting to know the children, they will be spending time—20 to 30 minutes per child—probably out of the classroom. With a class of potentially 30 children, that is several hours when the teacher could have been with the children in the classroom.

The Government have an interesting history on baseline assessment. In September 2016, the DfE was due to introduce a reception baseline check for all children. The Government suggested that the new tests would ensure higher standards and allow all pupils to receive the attention they needed and build on areas of weakness. Schools piloted three different types of assessment. A third of the pilot schools had tests carried out one to one with a reception teacher; these focused on the very basics of learning such as counting and picture, letter and number recognition. The NFER assessment used common reception resources such as counting beads, plastic shapes and number and picture cards, and the children worked through activities while the teacher recorded their progress on a digital device. The other third of schools decided to use an assessment that relied on teachers’ observations of children’s skills within the normal day-to-day school routine. This method of assessment was designed so that the children did not even know they were being tested.

In the summer of 2016, the baseline check was put on hold indefinitely and teachers were told to continue with the early years foundation stage profile pending further decisions. This decision was taken because the Government confided that the three pilots could be taken by the same child and come out with different results. So we see that the data provided by reception baseline assessment is sometimes—indeed, often—unreliable.

Administering tasks and tests, which takes teachers away from the classroom at the very time they want to get to know the children, is not the right way to proceed. Let me give an example. Imagine this: little Elizabeth starts reception. She is nervous and in wonder mode. In her first few days, as she is getting to know the classroom environment and the teacher, she is taken out of the classroom and tested. She then goes back into the classroom. What happens to those results? Do her parents get to know them? Do her next six teachers get to know them? What happens at the end of those seven years? What happens if little Elizabeth has not made the progress she should have made? Will the Government do anything to the teachers or to the school? What is the purpose of those tests and that assessment?

As has been said, now—when schools are still struggling with the problems of Covid—is certainly not the time to experiment with this baseline assessment. As we have also heard, at a time when early years resources are quite limited, now is not the time to spend money on an ambitious scheme when we do not know whether it will be successful.