Tests for four-year-olds ‘unreliable’, say teachers
BBC News | Education Hannah Richardson |12 February 2016
Official assessments of four-year-olds are unreliable and disrupt the crucial early days of school when children should be settling in, a report says.
Teachers told researchers for two teaching unions these tests distracted them from getting to know their pupils.
Many said the tests themselves were unreliable, duplicated work already being done and did not marry with existing school assessment systems.
Ministers say a fair baseline is needed to ensure pupils reach their potential.
The baselines assessment will be used to assess each child’s level of development at the beginning of school, so the progress they make by the time they leave can be measured.
The tests, being brought in to all schools from September 2016, assess basic reading ability, basic numeracy and writing, as well as children’s social and emotional development.
Researchers from the University of London, commissioned by the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, carried out in-depth interviews with staff in five primary schools piloting the assessments, and quizzed 1,131 NUT and ATL members in a snapshot survey.
In some schools, extra teachers had to be employed to teach while the class teachers carried out the one-to-one assessments on each pupil, researchers said.
One teacher said: “If you have got 60 young people coming in… and you have to tick 47 boxes about all of them, of course your mind is going to be on that rather than talking to them about their nice shiny shoes and about their pet rabbit at home.”
Of those surveyed, 59% said the assessment had disrupted the start of school for Reception pupils.
One teacher told the team: “It took a long time out of my teaching time and was open to lucky guesses, particularly in the maths part.”
Another said: “Baseline assessment is the biggest farce I have undertaken during my entire teaching career. The potential for children to guess at answers or to misinterpret things is too vast to give a clear representation of where children are at.”
