Where is the ethic of care in early childhood summative assessment?

Abstract

In 2015, the British government implemented a national Baseline Assessment policy for children at the start of their Reception Year (aged 4–5 years) in England. Adding further assessment to the national Early Years Foundation Stage, the Baseline policy was predicated on reform for improved school accountability, with a focus on measurement of both children’s outcomes and school readiness. This small-scale research study juxtaposes the dominant policy narrative that focuses on assessment for accountability, with the alternative lenses of relational pedagogy and care ethics. The study seeks to establish the extent to which an ethic of care is present or absent in policy texts and teacher talk on summative assessment in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Through a critical discourse analysis of government policy texts and a thematic analysis of teachers’ dialogue from a focus group, three analytical themes were identified: accountability, quantification of children’s development and the perceived impact of Baseline Assessment. Furthermore, the study explores the possibility that care ethics, while missing from policy, are backgrounded rather than absent in participant teachers’ dialogue and classroom life. While acknowledging the limitations of a small focus group and the novelty of the Early Years Foundation Stage Baseline Assessment policy, this study argues for a reorientation of the current ‘accountability’ discussion to one which foregrounds more care-full relationships in assessment policy and practice. Such a contention has implications beyond the single country focus of this study and contributes to international debate on the importance of care in testing times.