Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development jurisdictions operate a statutory baseline assessment for accountability purposes at the start of school.

The Department does not hold this information.

There are a variety of different arrangements in place across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) countries and jurisdictions. These are documented by the OECD and other international organisations. Some examples are provided below:

• The OECD’s Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) network have collated information about existing assessments of the development and well-being of children before or at the point that they start school. More information about their work is available from their website: http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/earlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm

• Within their Key Data Series, the European Commission publish a report on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe that includes some reference to learning objectives, outcomes and assessments. The report was most recently published in 2014: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/Eurydice/documents/key_data_series/166EN.pdf

• Since 2013 the Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC) has been working with the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) on an international study on early childhood education (ECES). Their latest report contains a chapter on assessment practice across eight countries: http://www.crec.co.uk/announcements/iea-eces-early-childhood-policies-and-systems-in-eight-countries