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Reception Baseline Assessment (BASE) for ages 4-5

Pre-school, Kindergarten, Reception baseline assessment

Support early learning and development

Age: 4-5 years old
Avg Duration: 20 minutes
Assessment: Adaptive, Baseline, Curriculum independent, Digital
Sections: Literacy, Numeracy, Communication & Language, and Personal Social and Emotional Development
Price: Costs
 

Find out more Buy BASE

Preschool pupil with teacher using BASE on a laptop

Assessments to empower schools

What started as a personal, small-scale research project in 1982 has developed into a whole series of assessments for schools worldwide. We help you to uncover students' baseline abilities, understand their capabilities and unlock their full potential. Education professionals use Cambridge Insight (formerly CEM) assessments in more than 125 countries, and over 481,000 students will take a Cambridge Insight assessment this academic year.

What is BASE?

BASE is a reception baseline assessment designed to give you a snapshot of where your children are when they start school at age 4 or 5.

Developed to complement your observations of early learning, BASE provides objective and independent information that helps you to understand what children know, what they can do when they join you and the progress they make during this crucial stage of development.

As well as supporting the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) profile, our BASE Progress and BASE Inspection Ready packages allow you to monitor your children's progress over the year and ease the transition into Year 1.

Why use Early Years and Reception baseline assessments?

We know there are a lot of strong opinions about putting children through formal testing at such a young age. We agree. Testing for record keeping at this age adds no value to learning. However, assessment with purpose can make all the difference.

Research conducted using BASE data found that children start Reception year with a wide range of knowledge – some children even have the level of knowledge and understanding that would be expected on completion of Reception year. This is why using a baseline assessment like BASE is essential to understanding children’s comprehension and skills.

Browse our collection of blogs and webinars to learn more about a good reception baseline assessment's impact on a student's learning.

More than just a test

Assess Icon

Assess

A fun and engaging storybook-style approach designed to give children valuable one-to-one time with their teacher. Flexible teacher-led assessment that can be stopped or started at any time.

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Analyse

Results are available to download within 48 hours, providing powerful insights to act upon. Quickly identify individual needs in 'hard to observe' ability areas. Compare development with children of a similar age.

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Plan

Use the feedback reports to plan activities, support and align resources to particular needs immediately.

Teach Icon

Teach

Target resources effectively. Support observations and professional judgement with reliable data.

Reflect Icon

Reflect

Monitor the progress of each child and cohort with an end-of-year follow-up assessment. Benchmark your school performance against averages and a comparison. Understand trends in cohorts over time.

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Support

Access support and guidance from your secure site.

"Having high quality data and information from assessment increases our knowledge of each child quickly and puts them at the heart of their learning."

Lydia Cuddy-Gibbs, Head of Early Years, Ark Schools

Read more case studies...

How does BASE work?

Children carry out the baseline assessment during the first few weeks of starting school. This assessment takes 15 to 20 minutes, one-on-one with their teacher on a laptop or computer. Through a series of fun activities and story-based questions, the assessment checks and adapts to the child's ability level, so it's constantly engaging and offers the right amount of challenge.

Automatic uploads capture pupils' responses, so there is no teacher-marking. Insights that might take weeks of teacher observations are available from the start.

You can use the optional follow-up end-of-year assessment to track progress and get an accurate measure of your student's progress during this crucial first school year.

 

 

Ready to get started with BASE?

Reports vary depending on which option you choose. Our friendly team will gladly help you decide which option suits your school.

If you are an existing customer, please use the online subscription process on your secure site.

Choose from three subscription options:

Child-BASE-smaller

BASEline

  • BASEline
  • Core reporting
  • - Table of Scores – including scaled score for DfE reporting
  • - Question-Level Report
  • Core onboarding and training


£7.40 per student

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BASE Progress

  • Baseline assessment – Start of year
  • Progress Measure assessment – End of year
  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development – Start & End of year
  • Core reporting
  • - Table of Scores – including scaled score for DfE reporting
  • - Question-Level Report
  • Progress Measure reporting
  • - Student report
  • - Class report
  • Core onboarding and training

£14.70 per student

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BASE Inspection Ready

  • Baseline assessment – Start of year
  • Progress Measure assessment – End of year
  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development – Start & End of year
  • Core reporting
  • - Table of Scores – including scaled score for DfE reporting
  • - Question-Level Report
  • Progress Measure reporting
  • - Student report
  • - Class report
  • Parent Report
  • Interactive reports
  • - School Comparison
  • - Inspection Ready
  • Core onboarding and training

£16.90 per student

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