Don't Test My 4 Year Old

[JamesEYFS]

Dear Parents

I've been lurking on Mumsnet for a little while but I think I may finally have something interesting to say.

I'm a teacher and a parent, in September I will be forced to conduct a baseline test with children new to school. The test is not for me or your child! It is there to generate data that the government and DfE are yet to make clear how they will use.

I, like many other teachers, academics and parents, feel that is wrong. If you do not wish your child to sit this test in September it is important to inform your new school as soon as possible. I've written an example letter/email in my blog post below.

www.jameseyfs.com/blog-1/don-t-test-my-4-year-old

I hope it's useful. I'd love to hear from you if you get a reply from your school!

Eyfs nursery nurse, I work in partnership with the teacher each year, assessing our new class each September.
Ffs we're not testing them, baseline assessments are a hugely useful way of quickly getting a feel for the children in our care each year. We can then tailor our curriculum and daily planning to meet individual needs.
The children have absolutely no idea we are assessing them, for example having the bikes out on the first day, is a quick way of assessing certain areas of physical development but the children are oblivious!
I really can't understand your issue at all.

Hey FFS74

I believe you've been misinformed. This baseline is strictly to provide government data and is not our usual assessment process.

Damian Hinds himself said "this data is not for schools."

The child will be taken one to one to do a series of tasks on an iPad which the practitioner cannot use to inform planning.

Have a little read around and you'll see what's going on with this.

Sorry but seen as we're quoting levels of experience bas that seems to give authority. I've worked in Early Years for 15 years as a practitioner, nursery manager, teacher and now a school leader. I hold an MA in Education and I am a good way through my PHD.

Absolutely not what we do at my school, unless I'm returning in September to a huge change!
I still struggle to understand your viewpoint and think you describing them as tests is misleading and clearly done to spark concern in parents.

Incidentally, impressive qualifications and hands up, they certainly eclipse mine but I've worked in early years for over 25 years, so do feel entitled to offer my opinion.

My dd is about to start primary school and i have no issues with any baseline assesments being done.

I think it's important for schools to understand where pupils are inorder to appropriately set work/support students.

Regarding 'testing for government' again no issue here, government need upto date data inorder to manage the education system effectively and knowing where children are starting will aid this, by taking the raw data directly they are avoiding the possibility of any data being tampered with.

I thought the new, and controversial one, wasn't for another year? Granted I don't work in eyfs very much and not in the day to say sense, so may have missed it.

But yes, I understand there are many concerns about the new assessments.

The baseline entry to reception (which is a short series of activities) will replace the KS1 SATS.

Which would you prefer your child to do?

Though I guess your school must be one of the pilot schools.

The main issue is going to be fitting in a 20
Minute assessment, with time either side to prep and then input data, for each child is potentially going to be a big issue, especially in those first few weeks when you want to be spending time observing and talking with children in the class to make useful observations to inform teaching and learning.

30 minutes for 30 children is an awful long time taken out of actually being with the children, especially as not all eyfs classes have full time teaching assistants.

Ks1 SATs don't go until two years later.
I'd rather have neither and trust teachers to know their pupils personally. Seeing as it's teacher assessment that is actually reported in KS1 anyway, and everyone knows that a one off test of a 6/7 year old is never going to be a reliable method of assessment.

Ffs74 perhaps you need to read https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/781766/Receptionbaselineassessmentframework.pdf
And https://www.nfer.ac.uk/for-schools/participate-in-research/information-about-the-201920-reception-baseline-assessment-pilot/
And perhaps https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1166984/schools-invited-to-pilot-reception-baseline-as-opposition-against-it-grows

And perhaps https://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/A-baseline-without-basisBERA-reportJuly2018.pdf?noredirect=1

The trial baseline has been taken up by many schools in September. It is said to take 20 mins per child, minus the settling in, breaks that may be needed etc. Times this by the number of children in the class. On top of this, because the data is unusable for the teachers, they will have to carry out their own baseline assessments to get meaningful data they can plan from to ensure all children’s learning is taken forwards. At a time when meaningful, nurturing relationships should be being built. If teachers are doing the test, in a quiet space on an iPad, who is with the rest of the class? If schools are trialling the baseline this year it is important for parents of new starters to be informed and to make their own decision as to wether they want their child to take part. Thank you for the letter template.

@ffs74
You're entitled to your opinion but it's uninformed.

Good teachers do this sort of thing routinely.

Knowing what the DC are like, and what skills they have is pretty damned fundamental to being able to differentiate and teach the pupils appropriately. It's not testing, in the sense of formal exam-type stuff. It's about getting to know pupils abilities.

I'm afraid I can't get up a head of steam about how awful it is to ensure that every teacher follows (non-controversial) best practice.

I don't think the test is a bad idea. All schools locally do half days at beginning of reception so should be able to find time to fit this in quite easily.

It's all well and good (other than the time commitments) if it's taken by everyone as a genuine baseline. But you KNOW parents in Surrey will tutor for this!

Cue 'but if they don't do well in baseline the school will set lower targets for them in Y6 and they won't get as much help....'

This is on top of normal, good assessment procedures, not instead of. The data will not be seen by teachers, it cannot inform planning and next steps.

If everyone is going to 'game' the system then it will rapidly become pointless.

One of the most depressing posts on TES I read was a teacher saying (to general approbation) that if there's a way to teach tithe test, teachers will find it.

If this is seen as an important test (a view which threads like these foster) then it'll probably go down that path, rather than it being a simple few minutes to help,establish baselines.

Data centrally collected makes a huge difference to individual DD, and anyone whinthunks not is being woefully naive. The rhetoric that 'this make no difference to the DC (or similar phrasing) is wrong. And I commend the book 'Weapons of Math Destruction' (Cathy O'Neill) to them.

The regular cries for evidence based policy, and the drive to make education more aligned with population needs make baseline testing inevitable.

As noted above, good teachers do this anyhow to better inform what they do in the classroom.

The issue is not that children should it be assessed at this age. It's happening already - indeed it is good practice.

What is disliked is any form of centralisation of the information.

Does that mean that the question is whether there should be evidence-based policy making?

Because if that is wanted, then the evidence needs to be gathered.

If this is the wrong approach to gathering baseline information, what would be the right one?

Or is evidence-based policy making not a worthwhile thing, because (as people post) it's not directly benefiting the DC from whom the information is collected.

A lot of misinformation being spouted here.

Yes it is a test.

No it does not replace SATs.

No this is not what we normally do, as teachers, and it will not inform us in developing planning and curriculum. We have to do our observational assessments on top of this to inform that.

My concern is how this data will be used. It is attached to your child's pupil number, so will be available for their future schools to see etc. I'm. It comfortable with a test done at 4 being used like that.

But this is not the type of test good teachers do normally. They'll still need to do those by all accounts as the data collected from these new baselines will not be used by schools int at way.

These are in addition to those kind of observations.

To fully implement these baselines in your average classroom will take at least 15 hours of 1:1 teacher time.

Surely that time, at the start of a new year group, would be better served being with the children in class, sitting on the foot with them, joining in their role play games, asking them about their favourite stories, etc.

Those half days or half class sessions are for the benefit of the children not to sit and do assessments with them!

Cue 'but if they don't do well in baseline the school will set lower targets for them in Y6 and they won't get as much help....'

@reefedsail

So does it make more sense for children not to do so well in this test? (I know absolutely nothing about these tests, so trying to understand what you mean).

I think every child should have an individual assessment of some kind so problems (or being super advanced) is picked up ASAP. Some things can be assessed as a group but unless some is individual, kids will be overlooked. Dd did have an assessment (started school late due to international move) and they set her on an individual programme to suit her (she was far ahead of the class).

@fraumaximoo schools will be judged on how much progress children make between YR baseline and Y6.

Theoretically, if a child does very well in baseline the school would have to set them high targets in Y6 in order to show good progress. That could lead to 'high expectations bias' (probably has a real name) where teachers unwittingly give more attention to children expected to do well. It could also lead to intervention being focused on DC to ensure they do get the high level in Y6 that their baseline suggested they should.

Exactly the same effect is currently a feature of Y6 SATs. Some parents are very keen for their DC to do well in SATs because their GCSE targets will be based on them, and if their targets are higher they could get more support to make sure they hit them.

For the school it looks better if DC does terribly at baseline and brilliantly in Y6. But ambitious parents will not see it that way!

"Good teachers do this sort of thing routinely" good teachers will routinely assess children in their day to day activities to build up a useful picture of the child's strengths and needs and the best ways to support their learning they won't carry out the kind of tests proposed by the DfE.
When baseline testing was introduced (2016?) there was a good reason why most schools chose to use the EE model as opposed to the NFER and CEM tests.