Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the answer of 5 March 2018 to Question 130185, on Pre-school Education: Assessments, whether it will be his Department's policy to have early years baseline assessments and the early years foundation stage profile assessments being conducted on the same children in the same academic year.

It is government policy that the reception baseline assessment (RBA) will be taken by all children within six weeks of entering reception. The same children will also be observed as part of the early years foundation stage profile assessment (EYFSP) during the reception year.

As set out in the response to Question 130185, the two assessments have different purposes. The RBA is a brief teacher-mediated assessment that will take place at the beginning of the reception year to establish a baseline for a new school-level progress measure between reception and Year 6. This means there will no longer be a need to test children at Key Stage 1. The EYFSP is intended to provide parents, carers and Year 1 teachers with a rounded assessment of a child’s knowledge, abilities and development at the end of the reception year.