Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has made an assessment of the effect of the new baseline test on children's (a) confidence and (b) relationships with (i) teachers and (ii) other pupils.

As we develop the reception baseline assessment (RBA), we are continuing to discuss its implementation with a wide range of stakeholders, including teachers, early years practitioners and assessment experts. We will conduct a voluntary national pilot in the autumn of this year, which will enable us to consider pupils’ experiences of the assessment ahead of its scheduled statutory rollout in September 2020.

Most, if not all, schools carry out assessments of pupils when they start reception so they can ascertain their level of development and plan teaching and learning. While the precise nature of these assessments may vary, the RBA will be broadly consistent with activities that take place in reception classrooms – for example, counting and describing pictures.