Key stage 2 access arrangements: an investigation
This report reviewed a new tool for identifying pupils who are eligible for special access arrangements for KS2 national curriculum tests.
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The government plans to introduce a robust and fair assessment system for access arrangements in 2014. Under these arrangements it is proposed that an updated and more efficient version of the DfE guidance will also be introduced in the form of online software that schools will use to identify eligible pupils. It is envisaged that this software will be an online version of the paper-based draft flowchart.
The objective of the research was to gather the perceptions of teachers, special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs), educational psychologists and local authority officers of the suitability, clarity, usability and efficiency of the draft flowchart as a new tool for identifying all pupils who are eligible for access arrangements for KS2 national curriculum tests (NCTs), pupils who are not eligible and pupils who should not sit them because the arrangements cannot provide them sufficient access.
It comprised a national survey of 589 mainstream state-funded primary schools in England, including maintained schools and primary academies, 59 special schools that had offered KS2 NCTs in each of the previous 4 years, and visits to 15 schools in 4 LAs where educational psychologists observed teachers and SENCOs using the flowchart.