Parents of new Reception children September 2026 – What you need to know about the screen-based Reception Baseline Assessment and what you can do about it.

What is the Reception Baseline Assessment?

Until 2025 the RBA used familiar, hands‑on materials such as picture cards, activity blocks and other physical resources which fit naturally into a play‑based Reception classroom. In June 2025, the Department for Education changed the guidance so that state schools in England are now expected to deliver the RBA using two digital devices: the teacher uses one device to run the questions, and the child uses a touchscreen tablet to record their answers.

Our letter to Ministers

When this change was announced, SafeScreens coordinated a letter to Ministers in June 2025. The letter was signed by school leaders, parliamentarians, educationalists, child health experts and other campaigners. Our letter set out serious concerns about pushing Reception‑age children onto touchscreen devices at the very start of their school life

We argued that:

• The previous version of the RBA, using physical objects and play‑based activities, was better aligned with decades of research on early years development
• Moving the assessment onto screens risks normalising device use in Reception classes and sends a strong and unwelcome signal to parents that children need to be “screen‑ready” to be “school‑ready”.
• The change appears to have gone ahead with minimal piloting, no published risk‑benefit assessment, and very limited consultation with parents and teachers.

We urged the Department for Education (DfE) to withdraw the digital guidance and to prioritise children’s wellbeing and development over the roll‑out of new ed‑tech products.

What the Government’s own guidance says about screens in the early years

Since then, the DfE has published new guidance on screen use in early years settings, covering children aged 0‑5. This guidance is clear that screen used should be limited and with active adult involvement, not as passive, automated activities.

It states that good practice when using screens with young children includes:

“Adults co‑engaging with children, prompting children to think, predict, respond or discuss, and avoiding activities which provide an automatic response without any effort on the part of the child.”

The guidance suggests that adults should comment, narrate, describe and ask open‑ended questions to stimulate conversation when screens are used. In other words, any screen‑based activity in the early years should be social, supported and responsive. 

How the screen-based RBA conflicts with this guidance

In the touchscreen version of the RBA, teachers are not allowed to help, prompt or guide children in the way the screen guidance recommends. The assessment materials require teachers to follow a scripted set of instructions and to avoid giving extra hints or explanations, even when a child is clearly struggling or confused

This creates a stark contradiction:

• The DfE’s early years screen guidance says adults should co‑engage, prompt and discuss when screens are used with young children
• The DfE’s assessment rules for the RBA say teachers must not prompt or support children beyond the script when the child is using a touchscreen device in the test]

In practice, this means a four‑year‑old may be:

• using a touchscreen they don’t fully understand
• facing questions where the “right” answer depends on tapping and dragging accurately
• sitting with a trusted adult who is not allowed to guide, model or scaffold their interactions with the screen.

From a parent’s perspective, that raises obvious questions: is this really measuring children’s early learning – or their ability to try to work out how a touchscreen works?

New research from Leeds Beckett University and University College London and what it shows

These concerns are no longer theoretical. A research team from Leeds Beckett University and UCL has compared the RBA in its earlier, non‑digital form with the first year of the touchscreen version. Their work is summarised in a recent blog by Dr Mandy Pierlejewski and published by Carnegie Education, Leeds Beckett University: “THE RECEPTION BASELINE ASSESSMENT DOES NOT ALIGN WITH SCREEN GUIDANCE“

The researchers observed Reception children taking the screen-based RBA in 2025 and found that:

• Every child observed showed signs of stress and anxiety when using the touchscreen.
• Many children did not have the digital skills needed to complete the tasks, even when they understood the underlying maths or language concepts.
• Children often struggled to understand what the device wanted them to do, and their performance was influenced by the touchscreen interface rather than by their actual knowledge.
• Teachers, bound by the script, were not permitted to step in and support children in a natural way, even when children were visibly distressed.

The research concludes that the touchscreen RBA does not align with the DfE’s own guidance on screen use in the early years and raises serious questions about whether it is appropriate to expose very young children to this kind of digital assessment.

What this means for your child starting Reception

2026 will only be the second year that Reception children are expected to use a touchscreen device for this statutory test. That means there is still time for parents and schools to raise concerns and to ask for the approach to be reconsidered

If your child is starting Reception in September, it is important to know that:

• The RBA is a statutory assessment for schools, but parents are not required by law to agree to the digital touchscreen format.
• Children do not receive a score, the results are not shared with parents, and the test is used by the government to create a progress measure for schools over time.
• There is a paper‑based alternative, though last year some schools were told they should only use it for children with specific needs.

Given the new evidence that every observed child in the digital trial showed signs of stress and anxiety, and the clear mismatch with the government’s own early years screen guidance, many parents feel this is not an appropriate test for four and five-year-olds just starting school. 

Our updated opt‑out letter for parents

SafeScreens has created a new opt‑out letter template for 2026 for parents who do not want their child to take part in the digital touchscreen element of the RBA. You can download it here:

• Opt‑out of Digital Assessment – Reception

You can edit the letter to reflect your own perspective and then send it to your child’s headteacher or class teacher before the start of term or as early in September as possible.

How parents can take action together

If you share these concerns, you are not alone. Parents, teachers, researchers and parliamentarians have all raised questions about the wisdom of introducing high‑stakes digital testing for four‑year‑olds.

You can:

• Read Dr Mandy Pierlejewski’s blog and share it with other Reception parents.
• Talk to your child’s school about how they plan to deliver the RBA and whether they will respect parental requests not to use the touchscreen format.
• Use our opt‑out letter to set out your concerns and request a non‑digital alternative for your child.
• Share this information with other families so that parents can stand together, rather than feeling they have to raise concerns on their own.
• If you are able to co-ordinate a small group of parents at your school who share your concerns do get in touch with us – we will provide support where we can.

The early years screen guidance recognises that young children learn best through play, conversation and real‑world interaction, with any screen use carefully limited and actively supported by adults. The current touchscreen version of the Reception Baseline Assessment does not meet that standard. It is reasonable for parents to question it.

The 2025 RBA research project was led by Dr Mandy Pierlejewski from Leeds Beckett University, with Jennifer Holly from Leeds Beckett University, Professor Guy Roberts-Holmes and Dr Sara Hawley from University College London.