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National tests for seven-year-olds should be reintroduced in England, according to Nicky Morgan.

The education secretary has claimed that “robust” assessment is needed to measure progress in schools.

In an announcement today (3 November), she said: “We’ll be working with head teachers in the coming months on how we get this right, holding schools to account and giving them full credit for the progress they achieve.”

Ms Morgan also said more “robust and rigorous” checks on progress at age seven would help ensure that pupils had “mastered the basics” before leaving primary school.

The new system would mean that primary age pupils are assessed at the start of reception year, in phonics ability at the end of year one and tested in years two and six.

The proposal to reintroduce formal testing at Key Stage 1, previously abandoned in 2004, was met with opposition from teaching unions and the early years sector.

�������� chief executive Neil Leitch said it was “disappointing” that the government had not taken the opportunity to review the plans, which would “subject children to needless tests during the crucial settling-in period”.

“The government’s continued obsession with rigid testing, as exemplified by today’s proposals to introduce formal tests for seven-year-olds, is deeply misguided. Such a narrow view of attainment does a disservice to young children, and reduces opportunities for genuine learning to little more than a tick-box approach to education,” he added.