Best Schools - Testing of under-fives goes ahead despite teaching union objections

The Department for Education is to press ahead with its latest attempt to assess the abilities of four- and five-year-old children in their first weeks of full-time schooling, despite strong opposition from teaching unions.

The DfE is calling for primary schools in England to volunteer for its new reception baseline assessment as part of a pilot before the new measure is introduced from autumn 2020.

The new assessments will be designed to gauge the levels of ability that children exhibit in language, communication, basic literacy and maths at the start of their reception year, when most children begin formal schooling aged four.

The pilot is part of an overhaul of state school accountability in England in order to chart the progress of pupils from entry until key stage two tests at the end of primary school, with key stage one tests previously taken at age seven being scrapped in preparation.

“The reception baseline assessment is a hugely important step forward in ensuring that we can fairly and accurately measure how effectively schools are helping children to progress while helping to reduce the burden of assessment for teachers,” said Nick Gibb, the schools minister, in announcing the opening of applications to take part in the pilot.

The new assessment will face hostile challenges from teaching unions, with many opposed in principle to any form of testing of young children on the grounds of unreliability and potential stress.

The National Education Union – the largest union operating in primary schools in England – voted overwhelmingly last year to boycott any pilot scheme run by the DfE. Delegates at the NEU’s national conference were told the proposed assessments were “expensive, damaging and immoral”.

But policymakers argue that the current measures fail to recognise the important progress that schools make with pupils between reception and year two, and do not show the different starting point from which pupils begin their education.

According to the DfE, the new tests will take about 20 minutes to carry out and can be administered at any time in the first six weeks of children starting reception class. The assessments will not carry any pass or fail mark and teachers will only receive brief statements showing them how pupils performed.

Language learning: German and French drop by half in UK schools

Foreign language learning is at its lowest level in UK secondary schools since the turn of the millennium, with German and French falling the most.

BBC analysis shows drops of between 30% and 50% since 2013 in the numbers taking GCSE language courses in the worst affected areas in England.

A separate survey of secondaries suggests a third have dropped at least one language from their GCSE options.

In England, ministers say they are taking steps to reverse the decline.

The BBC attempted to contact every one of the almost 4,000 mainstream secondary schools in the UK, and more than half - 2,048 - responded.

Of the schools which responded, most said the perception of languages as a difficult subject was the main reason behind a drop in the number of pupils studying for exams.