The Reception Baseline Assessment contravenes screen use guidance

Increased regulation of children’s screen use

There has recently been a change in direction in the UK Government’s approach to children’s use of digital devices. A social media ban for children Social media to be banned, new screen guidance for under fives screen-time-under-5s, a section on screen use in the September 2026 Early Years framework EYFS 2026 and new screen guidance for early years settings Screen use all indicate that the Government is taking a more regulatory approach to children’s screen use, which is a welcome change. This is supported by a wealth of research into the negative impacts of extended screen use on children of all ages. Research identifies the impact of excessive screen use on eyesight, posture, sleep, child development, communication and language, vocabulary, social and emotional development and mental health Research & Learning - Health Professionals For Safer Screens.

Within this movement towards more regulation of children’s screen use however, there is an unexpected anomaly. During the first 6 weeks at primary school, reception children, aged 4, must complete a mandatory test of their maths, literacy and communication and language skills. This test- The Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA), is conducted on a touch screen device Reception baseline assessment - GOV.UK. A team of researchers investigated this test over the course of 2 years and found that it does not align with the early years guidance. Our findings in fact, indicate that children found the test stressful and did not have the digital skills needed to complete it. 

Researching the Reception Baseline Assessment

I led the research project with Jennifer Holly from Leeds Beckett University, Professor Guy Roberts-Holmes and Dr Sara Hawley from University College London. Together we investigated the RBA in 2024, before the touch screen element was introduced and in 2025, the first year of the touch screen test. To find out how children experienced this test, we chose to examine a small number of children in schools based in London and Yorkshire. As 4-year-olds are too young to talk about their experiences, we decided to video record them completing the test. We then examined their body language using an approach called multimodal discourse analysis. This involves recording examples of a range of gestures, touch and spatial positioning as well as verbal responses. This research will be published later this year (Roberts-Holmes et al, In Press).

Teachers were unable to co-engage with children during the RBA

The guidance for early years settings states, “Good practice if you are using a screen involves adults co-engaging with children, prompting children to think, predict, respond or discuss” (Department for Education, 2026). Our analysis of the children’s experience of completing the RBA indicated that all children displayed signs of stress and anxiety during the 2025 screen-based test. They showed this through such actions as self-soothing, (stroking the face, sucking fingers and rocking back and forth) indications of tension (stiff body and gripping the chair) and seeking reassurance from their teachers by continually looking at them and asking, “Is it right?” Co-engagement from the teacher may have significantly reduced the levels of stress as a conversation could have reassured the child that they were on the right track. The test, however, requires the teacher to read from a script and they are not allowed to deviate from this script. In effect, teachers are forbidden from co-engaging with the children. This creates a very unnatural situation where the teacher acts like a kind of robot, only able to say certain proscribed sentences and unable to respond to the children’s attempts to communicate. For one child, this proved so frustrating that he kicked the table leg and turned his whole body away from the teacher, shouting “but I couldn’t!” when asked to complete a task.

The RBA requires a level of digital literacy which many children do not have

Even though many children have extensive experience of playing games and watching videos on small screens, we found that they did not know the digital actions needed to complete the test questions. Playing games on an IPad app, does not necessarily require children to use logic skills to evaluate whether they need to swipe, drag or touch for a given question. An example of this is a story sequencing question which involved ordering images from a story. The children were told the story and were then asked to move three images from the bottom of the screen into empty boxes at the top. They were not given any advice however, on how to move the images. The question required a diagonal drag and drop action which only 6 children of the 17 successfully completed. Many children moved the pictures vertically up to the corresponding box rather than diagonally into the correct order, with several accurately ordering the story verbally but inaccurately moving the images. This indicates that without adult guidance on the digital action required for each question, children were unable to demonstrate their knowledge. The guidance for early years settings (Department for Education, 2026) states, “Screen use in your setting should be limited, carefully planned and clearly linked to intended learning aims”. It is difficult to see how the use of the RBA assessment is “carefully planned” or “linked to intended learning outcomes”. In the example above, the learning outcome would be to demonstrate an understanding of the structure of a simple story. Most children were unable to demonstrate this as the activities included in the test prevented them from demonstrating their understanding.

Government guidance on screen use must be coherent. It cannot advocate for reducing the time children spend on screens and regulating the quality of screen use while at the same time, requiring all children to spend 20 minutes at the beginning of the reception year completing a statutory assessment on a screen. The test is stressful, inaccurate and requires a level of digital literacy which 4-years-olds do not and should not possess.

References

Department for Education (2026) Help for Early Years Providers: Screen Use [Online]. Available from < https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/health-and-wellbeing/screen-use> [accessed on 15 July, 2026]

Roberts-Holmes, G., Pierlejewski, M., Hawley, S. &Holly, J. (In Press) Digital Harms and the English Reception Baseline Assessment. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood.