Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA)
The reception baseline assessment (RBA) is an assessment that must be administered in all primary, infant and first schools in England to pupils attending reception classes. It has been statutory since September 2021.
Schools must complete the reception baseline assessment for each child in the first 6 weeks after they enter reception.
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Reception Baseline Assessment |
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GOV.UK - Reception Baseline Assessment |
Why is it being introduced?
The RBA will replace end of key stage 1 (KS1) national curriculum assessments as the baseline for primary progress measures. This allows the government to take account of the fact that schools have different experiences in terms of their pupils’ starting points. Under previous arrangements, we were not able to give full credit for the important work that schools do between reception and year 2. The RBA changes this by providing a snapshot of where pupils are when they arrive at school, establishing a new starting point to measure the progress that they make by the end of year 6. Removing statutory end of KS1 assessments also reduces the overall burden of the statutory assessment system. End of KS1 assessments became non-statutory from September 2023. The phonics screening check remains statutory.
What will it look like?
The assessment is short (the majority take less than 20 minutes to administer), interactive and practical, covering early mathematics, language, communication and literacy. Pupils use practical resources to complete the tasks and teachers record the results digitally on a separate tablet, laptop or computer. The assessment reflects familiar foundation-stage practice and encourage positive interaction between the teacher/teaching assistant and the pupil. There is no need for pupils to prepare for the assessment, either in a pre-school setting or at home, and in most cases pupils should not be aware that they are being assessed. The RBA should not replace the good practice of schools liaising with early years settings to gather and share information on children starting reception. The assessment is inclusive and accessible to the vast majority of pupils as they join school in reception. Most pupils with special educational needs or disability (SEND), or English as an additional language (EAL), are able to take part in the assessment. Modifed resources are available for pupils with visual impairments where adaptations to the standard resources would not be suffcient. Accompanying materials and detailed guidance are provided. Teachers, or teaching assistants, are able to administer the assessment in normal teaching time, recording the outcomes digitally. It should sit alongside the important activity that takes place during the frst term of reception.
Content
The reception baseline is an age-appropriate assessment of mathematics and literacy, communication and language (LCL), that is delivered in English. It is clearly linked to the learning and development requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). However, due to the length and nature of the reception baseline, not all areas of learning and development in the EYFS are assessed.
The assessment consists of:
Mathematics tasks
Early number
Early calculation (early addition/subtraction)
Mathematical language
Early understanding of pattern
Literacy, Communication and Language tasks
Early vocabulary
Phonological awareness
Early comprehension
Cognitive
Cognitive processes refer to the thinking skills and intellectual processes that occur in response to a stimulus. The cognitive domain makes explicit the thinking skills and intellectual processes associated with the assessment.
Cognitive development during the early years encompasses a wide range of cognitive skills. Young children are generally active and engaged learners who learn through exploration and possess a natural curiosity.
The reception baseline is a task-based assessment designed to maximise the active interaction between the pupil and the resources. Manipulation of physical resources may also enable some pupils to better demonstrate their skills and level of understanding to the practitioner.
Early cognitive development is multifaceted and the reception baseline requires a range of cognitive processes to be used in responding to the variety of tasks included. A variety of cognitive domains enables an effective assessment of children of this age and taps into their unique experiences. In order to respond to the assessment, pupils may need to demonstrate linguistic skills such as blending sounds, or mathematical skills such as number sense. Some cognitive processes, such as memory or attention, are deployed in both the mathematics and LCL tasks.
Cognitive Complexity
The activities in each reception baseline task have been designed to demonstrate a gradual increase in cognitive complexity. The tasks involve a range of cognitive processes from recall/procedural understanding through to showing a greater understanding of concepts and the ability to apply this understanding within a context. As is appropriate for this age group, the cognitive complexity within and between tasks is increased by moving pupils from concrete to abstract ways of working. As would be expected, there are a greater number of tasks and activities that require the use of physical resources. The proportions of activities that require these different ways of working are listed below. However, due to the routing within the assessment, as stated above, not all pupils will be presented with all questions
Types of Responses
Oral response
Pointing
Ordering or moving objects
Due to the different approaches that pupils may adopt, some activities may have more than one response type. In addition, different proportions of response types will be used depending on how pupils are routed through the assessment.
How will the results of the assessment be used?
Pupils do not ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ the assessment; it provides a snapshot of where they are when they start school in the reception year. The results of the assessment will not be used by government to track or label individual pupils, or to judge the performance of early years settings. We will use the data from the assessment to create a baseline for school-level progress measures for primary schools. This will show the progress pupils make from reception until the end of key stage 2 in year 6. We will publish these new measures for the frst time in the summer of 2028, when the pupils who entered reception in the 2021/22 academic year take the key stage 2 tests at the end of year 6. The new progress measure will ensure schools are recognised for the work they do with their pupils, in particular for those with a challenging intake and those who have been signifcantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
SEND and Inclusion
Assessments are required to meet Ofqual’s regulatory framework which states, ‘An assessment should minimise bias, differentiating only on the basis of each pupil’s level of attainment. A pupil should not be disadvantaged by factors that do not relate to what is being tested.’ The reception baseline should:
• use appropriate means to allow all pupils to demonstrate their knowledge and skills
• provide opportunities for all pupils to achieve, irrespective of gender, including pupils with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), pupils from all social and cultural backgrounds and those from diverse linguistic backgrounds
• use materials that are familiar to pupils
• not be detrimental to pupils’ self-esteem or confidence
The reception baseline has been designed to be an inclusive assessment, accessible to the majority of pupils on entry to school. This includes applying the principles of plain English and universal design wherever possible. It aims to assess pupils in a fair and comparable way, with as many pupils as possible able to access the tasks. It has been designed so that pupils with SEND and those learning English as an additional language can participate in the standard assessment format and has been subject to a SEND and cultural review.
Modified resources are available for pupils with a visual impairment. Practitioners can also make further adaptations, such as copying resources onto coloured backgrounds and enlarging or reducing some resources to a size which is appropriate for their pupils.
For pupils with a hearing impairment or who use sign language, the assessment can be conducted in British Sign Language or any sign-supported English, using signs familiar to the pupil. All pupils are presented with at least 22 marks’ worth of items (across a range of areas in mathematics and LCL) unless the practitioner chooses to discontinue the assessment.
Tasks are presented based on the prior tasks or activities the pupil has completed. Pupils will see some tasks that they will find challenging so they have the opportunity to show the breadth of their abilities. However, routing rules will help to ensure that pupils are not faced with a significant number of activities that are too difficult for them.