Teachers Set to Axe School Tables
Heads’ action threatens two pillars of Labour education reform: pupil tests and league tables
By Richard Garner, Education Editor
The death knell for national curriculum tests was sounded by head teachers yesterday as they warned all preparatory work would cease in schools from September.
The decision by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) to ballot on a boycott of the tests in maths, English and science means the Schools Secretary Ed Balls is facing the biggest showdown with teachers since Labour was elected in 1997. It represents a serious falling out between Labour and the head teachers seen as crucial for support of their education reforms. It would also present the first major headache for a Tory administration if it wins the next general election. A boycott would mean league tables being scrapped next year as there would be no information to use to compile them, said Mick Brookes, the NAHT general secretary. He was speaking after a vote in favour of balloting on a boycott – snubbing a plea from Mr Balls not to do so. In the vote, 94 per cent of delegates voted in support. Attitudes towards the tests have hardened since last year’s fiasco when thousands of results were delayed and a record number of appeals were lodged as a result of concern over marking standards. Primary school heads were also angered that Mr Balls scrapped tests for 14-year-olds but insisted those for 11-year-olds should go ahead. The NAHT will now send a letter to all parents of pupils who would be taking the tests next year insisting there will be no disruption to their children’s education.
The ballot by the NAHT – its first ever ballot on industrial action – could deliver a hammer blow to the tests. The union represents 85 per cent of primary heads, with the rest mostly in the National Union of Teachers, which has also voted to ballot on a boycott.
Last night the heads’ stance won support from parents. Margaret Morrissey of the pressure group Parents Outloud, said: “If parents feel their child is traumatised by the tests, they should support the headteachers. If [the tests] don’t stop, then don’t send the child to school during Sats week.” realising it is a irrisponsible action and will not be supported by some parents our evidence shows hundreds wsho do support the unions, desperate times call for desperate actions, our children are worth it.
In his address to the conference, Mr Brookes made a “personal apology” to the 11-year-olds who will be sitting their national curriculum tests in two weeks’ time. “I apologise … [that] children will be going through the same farcical testing system that should have been abolished many years ago,” he said.”I apologise to all of the teachers that have worked so hard to enthuse and ignite the joy of learning in children that their best efforts are crushed by … those who continue to support the current regime despite overwhelming evidence of the damage it does to children’s learning and desire to learn. This is particularly true for children who struggle to make sense of the academic world through no fault of their own.” In a statement explaining the implications of its decision “to end the tyranny of testing”, the NAHT said that children in their final year of primary school would have a “year of education … not disrupted by Sats”, adding that “schools will no longer be exposed to the humiliation of league table misrepresentation”.The decision would mean inspectors from Ofsted, the education standards watchdog, would have to report on teaching rather than rely on statistics. The NAHT vote came despite a personal plea from Mr Balls not to go ahead with the vote as an “expert group” – which is due to report later this week – is set to recommend changes to the current testing and assessment regime. School report cards along the lines of those already in use in the US would be brought in to give a broader picture of schools’ achievements. “They will make the old-style league tables a thing of the past,” Mr Balls said. He insisted he would not abolish the tests but added: “The last thing I want is for children and teachers to be overstressed by one particular set of tests”.
Mr Balls’ preference is for “stage not age-related tests”, which pupils would sit when their teachers considered they were ready to take them. The Department for Children, Schools and Families has said it considers the heads’ decision “illegal and irresponsible” – raising the prospect of legal action to stop a strike. The confrontation comes at a time of increasing pressure on Mr Balls, who is accused by the former head of the Government’s exams watchdog, Dr Ken Boston, of “sexing-up” information against him to make him the sole scapegoat for last summer’s test problems. Dr Boston told a committee of MPs that ministers had accused him of ducking questions about the tests at a meeting he had not even attended. Mr Balls has also been accused of “rigging” an important review of the primary school curriculum by refusing to allow former Ofsted inspector Sir Jim Rose, who headed the inquiry, to consider scrapping the tests.
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Sorry, but can someone please explain to me why this is GOOD for students and their parents?
Why is it that we think not being able to know how our children and their schools are achieving are good for any of us? Let’s face it, we live in the real world and one that – like it or not – is globalised and tests each and every one of us on a regular basis. We need to do everything we can to ensure that our children achieve.
To me this all smells of teachers and schools trying to hide their performance from the rest of us. I WANT to know which schools and teachers are better and I WANT the weaker ones to improve.
Without accountability we as a society risk raising a generation of functional illerates and sending them out to live, work and play in an increasingly competetive world without the proper foundation with which to succeed.
Let me get one thing clear. SATS test results are not needed for teachers to know how children in primary schools are doing. If this is the only way our children’s progress can be ascertained, then I think we should all give up! Any teacher who can’t give a comprehensive teacher assessment of a child’s learning needs and achievments by May of Year 6 should be sacked! Teachers in primary school know the children in their classes very well and should be able to make an assessment of their progress and learning needs without SATS tests.
SATS tests are so that schools can be graded by the government, who will then give out funding based on results. It is a way for them to justifiably ‘keep some schools short’, and to reward others financially. I find it a cynical use of our children’s precious school time that they should be drilled and worked just so that their school might maintain its placing in the league tables. I know of a class whose teacher drilled them not only in the questions, but also the answers, just so the school would ‘do well’. This makes testing meaningless to me!
My children’s teachers are resentful of having to administer SATS because it sucks the vitality and excitement out of the learning experience our children have at primary level. The levels of anxiety in children are extraordinary. If a school was causing such distress in such large numbers of children for any other reason, then staff would be getting disciplined, and parents would be calling for an investigation, but because it is the Government sanctioned SATS, then we are supposed to stand by and watch.
It is about time that teachers took a stand against SATS. Without them, the Government cannot administer them.
And for what it is worth, SATS results are not needed for the Government to know how schools are doing either. We have had schools inspections for a very long time now, and schools/staff performance is a part of that assessment process.
To blow another myth out of the water, nor are SATS needed for appropriate streaming of our children when they go to secondary school. In fact, many schools do not take any notice of them, and administer their own aptitude tests and literacy and numeracy tests to stream for the limited number of subjects that are streamed in the latter half of year seven. My children’s secondary school does this. These tests take a the space of one lesson each to administer, not a whole week, and although no child is ever happy to ‘have a test’, they are not stressed by them, unlike SATS.
And as for competition. Should we be teaching our children too much about this at primary level? Should they not experience learning for the love of it, engaging with activities for which they have talent and that they enjoy? With SATS on the scene, subjects such as music, singing, drama, sport and plain old Play – the interpersonal skills and confidence builders, are squeezed out, so that our chldren can be filled up like vessels with facts and figures to bolster the Government’s shaky and unreliable system of ranking its schools.
The boycott is long overdue!
Teacher assessments are statistically more accurate than test results. Why waste money on testing? Why skew and limit the learning and development of whole cohorts of children by training to the test rather than educating?
The “dragons” in “Dragon’s Den” are not successful because they are expert at listening really carefully, memorising things and regurgitating them under timed conditions! They are successful because they can think for themselves, make judgements, lead teams, problem-solve and communicate well. I want my son to be engaged in real,difficult, challenging learning developing these skills in Yr6 and beyond, not stultified by the fearful rote of “preparation for the test”.
This is a no-brainer. Respect to the NAHT and NUT for taking action here, not about pay and conditions, but about the quality of learning for the young people within their care. They are sticking their necks out for our kids.
Many parents of Yr5 children in my locality are preparing their own boycott of next year’s KS2 Sats test. We are letting Headteachers know well in advance so that they can plan the curriculum accordingly and make full use of the opportunities created to get some real learning back on the menu.
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