Reception baseline assessment (rba)

The Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) is a statutory assessment in schools from September 2021.  The RBA provides a snapshot of where pupils are when they arrive at school. It will provide a starting point to measure the progress schools make with their pupils between Reception and the end of primary school. 

What does the assessment involve?

Pilot analysis showed that pupils took an average of just over 14 minutes to complete the tasks. 

Pupils will complete a number of practical and interactive tasks one-to-one with their teacher or teaching assistant.  Your child can answer questions verbally or by pointing or moving objects. 

The assessment has been designed to be inclusive, which means it is also accessible to children with special educational needs (SEND) or English as an additional language (EAL).

What does the assessment measure?    

The RBA is a short, task-based assessment designed to assess early mathematics, literacy, communication and language skills.

What do I need to do?

You do not need to do anything.  Your child will not realise that they are doing an assessment.

How will the data be used? 

There is no pass mark or score.  Children will not ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ the assessment; it will provide a snapshot of where they are when they start school. 

The results of the assessment will not be used by the government to track or label individual pupils, or to judge the performance of early years’ settings.

The data from the assessment will only be used at school level to measure the progress of the year group from Reception to Year 6. The data from the assessment, including numerical scores, will not be shared with parents, pupils, teachers or external bodies.  

There will be no published score.

What feedback will parents receive?

Schools will receive narrative statements describing on how your child did, which will tell them how your child performed in the assessment. 

Schools do not need to share the narrative statements, however, must share the narrative statements with you upon your request.    

Reception Baseline Information for Parents 

Full information about the Reception Baseline Assessment and what it involves can be found by clicking here.