‘Stressful’ RBA is ‘waste of teaching time’ - survey

The new Reception baseline assessment (RBA) is not proving popular with school staff, according to a recent survey. It found that just 1 per cent of teachers and school leaders agreed that administering the RBA was a positive experience for pupils. The research was carried out via the Teacher Tapp app on behalf of the campaign group More Than A Score, which argues for fewer formal assessments in schools. EYFS/KS1 teachers, members of senior leadership teams and headteachers were surveyed, with a sample size of 448. Results were weighted in order to make them representative.

The RBA is compulsory for the first time in the 2021/22 academic year, and must be carried out in all reception classes before the October half-term. It is the basis for a new way of measuring progress in primary schools, with outcomes tracked from the point children enter Reception to the point they take their national curriculum assessments (SATs) in Year 6. In a number of schools classroom rotas have been changed, or extra support drafted in to cover teachers administering the tests. Almost half of Reception teachers surveyed (43 per cent) believe the process has been stressful for teachers, with 8 per cent believing it has also been stressful for children.

The Department for Education (DfE) has said the assessment should take up to 20 minutes to complete, and provide an opportunity for children to have ‘valuable one-to-one time with their teacher at an early stage’. However, in terms of children becoming settled in the school environment, only 14 per cent of survey respondents believed the tests were helpful for getting to know children, while 85 per cent felt that insights gleaned from the RBA were not as useful as their own observations of children. Furthermore, 88 per cent of Reception teachers agreed with the suggestion that the RBA is a waste of teaching time, with just one in ten saying the assessments did not disrupt time spent in the classroom.  The More Than A Score campaign have estimated that at least 60,000 school days have been ‘lost’ to the RBA, and argue this has happened at a time when ‘settling in to school has never been more important’. Nancy Stewart, spokesperson for the campaign, commented, ‘The first few weeks of school are absolutely critical. This is when teachers rightly spend their time getting to know children and instilling a love of learning. It’s simply wrong to disrupt that time with a test whose sole purpose is data collection.’

A DfE spokesperson said: ‘Children need to build vital vocabulary and reading skills in their early education, and it is important to see the progress they make in primary school. The Reception baseline assessment enables the department to understand how well schools are supporting pupils with these vital skills. Once the assessment is fully rolled out, the more substantial assessments at the end of Year 2 will not be mandatory, reducing the burden on teacher workload during these years.’