DfE announces new measures for recording primary school performance

The Department for Education has announced that assessments to measure pupil progress from the start of primary school are to be designed and delivered by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).

The aim of the assessments is to make sure schools re recognised for getting the best outcomes for their pupils and that teachers get credit for hard work during primary education.

The Reception Baseline Assessment will be administered as a twenty-minute, teacher-recorded assessment of children’s communication, language, literacy and early mathematics skills.

Pupils will not have to prepare for the test as it will cover material that many children will already be aware of, and it will replace the statutory tests which pupils have faced at the end of Key Stage 1.

According to the DfE, the activity-based assessment will enable better, fairer measures of primary school performance by capturing the progress teachers help pupils to make from the first weeks of reception all the way through to the end of year 6.