+ Why the NUT says NO to Baseline Testing

+ What the government wants The government intend to bring in Baseline Testing for Reception children starting with optional tests in 2015 – and recording the results from September Children will be expected to complete these tests in the first six weeks of starting school. The DfE says that these tests will support the “accountability framework.” Tests will measure a child’s attainment against a “pre-determined content domain” and the results used to monitor progress through the school system. The DfE says this will mean, “schools can be judged more fairly” – schools that choose not to do these tests will be assessed against the KS2 target of 85%.

+ How the tests work Schools can currently choose one of six tests being offered by different providers In most cases the tests will be carried out 1:1 between teacher and child In most cases the child will do the test on a tablet or laptop. In most cases the tests have right or wrong answers – with no room for teacher intervention If a child get the answer wrong the teacher has to move on. The test will provide a raw score for each child which will be used as the “baseline” against which to measure future attainment. These results will be used to monitor the performance of schools and teachers.

+ What does the NUT say? These tests are driven by accountability measures rather than the needs of children. Four and five year olds should not be tested in this way. A “one-size” test for children who may be a year apart in age is wrong. The first few weeks of school are an important settling in period for children and teachers. Teachers should make assessments of children in Reception class based on observations of them and the way they interact with others. These tests go against agreed good practice and the results will be unreliable and invalid More information at

+ Who else opposes Baseline Testing? Save Childhood Movement Early Education Too Much Too Soon National Association for Primary Education Early Childhood Forum Association for Professional Development in Early Years Primary Charter Association of Teachers and Lecturers And many, many more

+ Haven’t we been here before? Experts agree that these tests will make education worse. Policy-makers recognised this in the past and we will have to make them recognise it again. Baseline Testing was dropped in 2002 because it was unworkable A similar scheme was scrapped in Wales in 2012 because it was unworkable. We can stop these tests if we build a mass campaign.

+ What is the NUT doing? The NUT is committed to campaigning with others to opposes these tests. The Union will be putting pressure on the next government to stop these tests and organising events to publicise the campaign. This is an issue for all teachers as future targets and pay decisions could be based on Baseline Test results. We want to encourage school groups to meet and discuss this The tests are optional in 2015 and we want to encourage schools not to take part. We think this decision should be made by the staff together, not just the headteacher. We are encouraging school groups to talk to parents and governors about the tests and to consider holding a meeting.

+ Building towards a boycott? We must see these tests in the light of the overall situation with primary testing – SPAG, Phonics and KS2 SATs. Campaigning on Baseline Testing can help strengthen a more general campaign on testing. NUT Conference agreed that as part of our campaign, we would “build towards a boycott” of Baseline Testing. This would require a ballot of members in which we would need a really strong vote to support a boycott. We need to make sure that any ballot for a boycott takes place in the best possible circumstances. That means building the campaign amongst all teachers and with parents to raise our concerns about high-stakes testing.. If we build a campaign, we can get parents to say they don’t want their children tested like this Parents in America are campaigning against standardised testing

+ T-shirts and stickers available from Visit for information and materialswww.teachers.org.uk/baseline

+ And finally…. “We should be preparing children for the test of life, not a life of tests.” Art Costa - educator