A new pupil assessment is being introduced into primary schools in England, with a national, voluntary pilot in the academic year 2019/20. The reception baseline assessment (RBA) is designed to be taken in the first few weeks of the reception year (age 4-5), to provide a snapshot of where children are when they arrive at school.

The assessment covers mathematics and literacy, communication and language. Children are asked to complete different tasks and activities and give verbal responses in a one-to-one session with a teacher or teaching assistant, lasting around 20 minutes.

When it becomes statutory in September 2020, the assessment will provide the basis for a new way of measuring the progress primary schools make with their pupils. Scores will be recorded in the national pupil database and used to create a cohort level progress measure for schools at the end of key stage 2 (age 11). Further details are available in guidance issued by the Standards and Testing Agency.

The background to the changes is the new accountability measure to recognise the progress that pupils make through primary school, introduced in 2016. Currently, the baseline against which progress is measured is the statutory assessments taken at the end of key stage 1 (age 7). Its drawback is that it does not give schools credit for the value they add in the first three years of schooling from age 4. The introduction of the baseline assessment at age 4-5 means that in time children will no longer have to do the end-of-key stage 1 assessments at age 7.

Source: Eurydice UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) Unit