The consequences of using assessment methods in Early Years to simply gather data to measure performance are concerning. Following Buzzelli’s recent research on the moral and social impact of assessment in Early Childhood Education, this paper considers whether enough attention is given to emotional development during the assessment process children under the age of 5 are being subdued to. One consequence of performance measuring in Early Years is a tendency to neglect the emotional needs of young children. In relation to this, Sen identifies a clear connection between assessment and development which supports the idea of attending to emotional being before judgements of capabilities are made. This draws attention to the urgency of moving away from a system where standardised testing focuses on ranking not just children’s individual performance, but whole educational systems. This is also explored using Biesta’s work on the excessive importance given to measuring educational outcomes. The core of this paper is based on the analysis of the examples of practice in schools in Nepal, India, Spain and England. The analysis examines how Early Years practitioners approach assessment and to what extent emotional responses are taken into account as part of the assessment process. It then discusses how there are practitioners who use assessment mainly to measure the achievement of set outcomes. The data confirms that assessment in Early Childhood helps create a picture of who a child is. However, the standardised approach to assessment results in some children’s emotional needs being neglected.