Controversial tests for four-and-five year-olds in their very first weeks of school have been branded a "waste of time" by teachers amid calls for them to be scrapped.

The Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) is a check of children's skills, usually carried out in their first six weeks, to set a measure of progress around language, maths, and literacy.

Now polling of nearly 1,000 reception teachers across the UK has found that nearly nine in ten of them, some 88 per cent, believe it should be scrapped outright.

Just five per cent said it was a good experience for children, with even fewer believing it to be important, and others arguing it's a "waste of time and resources".

placeholder image — School pupils. David Jones/PA Wire

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) which carried out the research, said the focus was too much on data over children's learning.

"There are no benefits of this test for children, families and educators," he said.

The RBA is a short test, designed not to pinpoint children's performance but to set a starting measure for their progress through school.

It recently moved to a digital format, with the NEU findings suggesting the change has been fraught with challenges.

Two thirds of respondents felt assessments were worse as a result, with three quarters stating it had increased their workload.

“The digital RBA was a total shambles," one teacher replied. "It constantly crashed and I wasted loads of valuable time.”

Another added: “Assessments kept crashing and losing connections. Absolute waste of my time.

"Our children missed out on important first few weeks learning to use resources, make relationships and settle into school.”

The RBA has been statutory since 2021, and all children in state school must complete the test within their first six weeks of starting school.

The data it collects, said the Department for Education (DfE) is used to create school-level progress measures, and will be published for the first time in 2028.

"The main purpose is to create a starting point to measure the progress schools make with their pupils," it outlines in briefings for parents.

"It is not about judging or labelling your child or putting them under any pressure. Your child cannot ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ the assessment."

Now, the online survey of 970 reception teachers has found that just one in five of them believes the tests gather accurate information about a child's abilities.

Almost 95 per cent of respondents said it wasn't a good use of staff time and school resources.

One teacher said it had taken six weeks to test 40 children.

“I have been teaching for 13 years," another said. "I was flabbergasted by the time taken to administer a test to four-year-olds.

"It told me nothing helpful for their development.”

Mr Kebede said: "Digitising the test has been a disaster and appalling squander of resources as education funding is being cut to the bone.

"The solution is very clear - baseline cannot continue in any format.”  