Six providers of the reception baseline assessment have been approved by the Department for Education. However, there are some questions around the usefulness of a baseline assessment in mathematics, whether at Key Stage 1 or reception.
Some the issues that have been highlighted are as follows: very young children will be assessed but scores will not take account of whether children are born in the summer; Children will have varied pre-school backgrounds, in terms of cultures, experience of settings and knowledge of English; Schools will have an undesirable incentive to depress scores in order to increase measured progress, especially if this means attaining extra funding; What is considered key or informative in testing may also vary across schools.