Origins

History and basis of iPIPS (PIPS)

In recent years there has been an increased international interest in early childhood education, development and care, with a particular focus on the provision of pre-school (kindergarten) education. National and regional administrations across the world have been investing in this area, knowing the importance of a good start to children’s future educational progress. However, there is as yet no systematic comparative international study of children’s development at this age which will allow policy makers to evaluate the effectiveness of this investment.

The PIPS assessments on which iPIPS is based have been proven to provide highly robust and accurate baseline data over the past 20 years in the UK and a number of other countries. They have been used both for school improvement purposes and to help inform policy. As yet, however, they have not been used systematically in a comparative international context, although they are suitable for such use. In response to the rising interest from educational policy makers around the world, PIPS is being adapted for use in an international comparative study.

The Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) On-entry Baseline was originally created in 1994 for use in schools in England, with the intention of providing a firm point from which later educational progress could be measured. The content of the assessment was designed after examining the results of longitudinal studies that had monitored the progress of children from the ages of three to five years, to the end of primary education and beyond. Over the first years of the project the assessment was refined as predictive data became available.

Thousands of schools now use the assessment to identify strengths and weaknesses of individual pupils, classes and schools, to monitor progress against national and international norms and to provide information whilst supporting them to help their children. The assessment is carried out during the first few weeks of starting school and again at the end of the academic year thus providing information about progress and ensuring that firmer information can be recorded based on more than one investigation.

Video of use in classrooms

Research

The use of the PIPS assessment in the UK and around the world has generated a large bank of data which has been used to conduct research. One such study, commissioned by the Scottish Government, looked at what children know and can do when they start school and how this varied between countries.

This large-scale study looked at ability on entry to school with variations by home background, sex, age and pre-school experience within Scotland. Comparisons were then made with the cognitive development of children starting school in England, New Zealand and Western Australia, concentrating on children whose first language was English. Surprising differences were found between Scotland and other countries. The chart here shows what children in Scotland knew and could do when they started school in 2002. The questions are ordered by difficulty and alongside is the distribution of children’ scores. We can see that, on average, children could identify half of the alphabet although some children can’t name any letters, some can name the full alphabet and read some words. The most difficult question in the assessment is 42–17, and virtually no children could answer that at the start of school.