Primary Assessment and Accountability under the New National Curriculum

19 November 2013

Between July and October 2013 the Department for Education held a consultation on primary assessment and accountability under the new National Curriculum. This document is NFER’s response.

The consultation followed the publication of the draft new National Curriculum and the decision to discontinue the use of National Curriculum levels for assessment and accountability. The consultation set out the case for change and sought views on how attainment and progress in primary schools should be measured and reported, and how schools should be held to account.

Our response addresses the following issues:

• How to ensure that any system of assessment is valid, reliable and well-understood by parents and teachers.
• How the proposed system of scaled scores and decile ranking compares with the current system of levels.
• The challenges to be overcome in introducing a baseline check at the start of reception.