Pre-School Education: Data Protection

(asked on 29th October 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has received representations on the legality of a child's data being collected through baseline assessment testing but not accessible to (a) the child, (b) the parents of the child and (c) education staff; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 1st November 2018

The reception baseline assessment was trialled in a nationally representative sample of schools between 10 September and 19 October 2018. Schools’ participation in the trials was voluntary.

In line with accepted practice, the names of the schools that are participating in these trials will not be released by the department. Schools were recruited on this basis and releasing this information could adversely affect school participation in future voluntary trialling, which would put our ability to develop high quality, valid and reliable assessments at risk.

In our response to the public consultation on the future of the primary assessment system in England, and having noted the support from respondents to that consultation exercise, we confirmed that we would introduce a reception baseline assessment from the 2020 to 2021 academic year onwards. As part of that, we committed to explore the issue of what information from the assessment should be shared with schools. That consideration is continuing and we will make a further announcement prior to the introduction of the assessment.

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