TEACHERS’ unions united together this week in condemning the Tory SATs tests ‘debacle’, vividly reporting the harm they are doing to children and insisting that they must be scrapped altogether.
ATL General Secretary Mary Bousted said on Wednesday: ‘I’ve heard it all now: Nick Gibb (Tory Schools Minister) has claimed that it is teachers’ fault that primary school children are becoming stressed and anxious about the SATs.
‘He said this (and failed to answer correctly a question designed for 11-year-olds) live on air on 3 May – the day of the kids’ strike. The schools minister’s position is untenable. There are good reasons for the stress in primary schools now. This week a ComRes survey of 10- and 11-year-olds for the BBC’s Newsround found that in the run-up to the tests, 59 per cent of children were nervous, 39 per cent were worried and 27 per cent felt stressed.
‘Ministers would do well to recognise that it is not just the children who are stressed. Teachers and school leaders, whose jobs are hard enough without having to cope with government incompetence, have had their working lives made immeasurably worse because of the chaotic arrangements for SATs this year.
‘Today’s announcement that the answers to the key stage 2 spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG) test had been published online, follows hard on the heels of the pre-publication of the KS1 SPaG test, which was found, by a teacher, on the Standard and Testing Agency’s (STA) website for teachers and parents to download and use for test practice.
‘Every aspect of the government’s implementation of the new SATs tests has been characterised by delay and disorder. One needs only to look at the incompetent management of the KS2 guidance for teacher assessment of writing.
‘After the STA’s first set of guidance was pulled because it was unworkable, the second set of guidance arrived, late, in February. This guidance was, similarly, unworkable. Since February there have been no fewer than five “clarifications” of the guidance issued. A further 13 updated documents were released on 24 March – the last day of term, 16 days after the previous STA “clarification” of its earlier guidance.
‘But it is not just the administration of the SATs that is creating stressed school leaders and teachers, it is also their content. Not only are the English SPaG tests ridiculously difficult, requiring six-year-olds to recognise, and name, nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, noun phrases, past/present tense, progressive form, statements and commands, but they also fail to improve pupils’ ability to write well.
‘The evidence for this statement is contained in a 2012 Department for Education paper written by its own education, standards and research team, which concludes that grammar teaching is effective only when put into context, which according to the DfE means:
• Grammatical constructions and terminology are introduced at a point that is relevant to the focus of learning.
• The emphasis is on effects and constructing meanings, not on the feature or terminology itself.
• The learning objective is to open up a “repertoire of possibilities”, not to teach about correct ways of writing.
‘Have ministers accessed and read their own department’s research summaries and guidance for teachers? And if they have, why are they presiding over a nation’s children working to name language parts, rather than developing their writing abilities through wide reading and regular opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audiences?
‘The maths SATs are equally misguided and inappropriate. The Association of Teachers of Mathematics wrote to me recently, saying: “To be mathematically competent, people need to be able to approach tasks with flexibility, selecting methods that are appropriate and efficient for the task.
‘ “The curriculum allows many methods to be developed for flexible use. However, contrary to this, the tests are constructed in a way that emphasises particular methods. “The nature of the tests will encourage teachers and schools to focus on written methods rather than developing mental and flexible problem-solving. The requirement to learn times tables up to 12 is archaic (and is contrary to the advice given to the DfE by professional and learned organisations).’
‘The only conclusion that can be drawn is that these are badly designed tests. They serve only to narrow and constrain a curriculum that takes no account of, nor responds to, children’s developing understanding of concepts and their growing ability to adapt and shape the knowledge they are acquiring for their own ends (which is the essence of thought).’
NASUWT General Secretary Chris Keates wrote to Secretary of State for Education Morgan, saying: ‘In the last few weeks already overburdened primary school teachers and school leaders have faced even more pressure and stress as a result of the failure of Government to manage the Key Stage 1 tests appropriately, reckless announcements on forced academisation, which caused widespread panic and deep concern across the system and now the further problems with the Key Stage 2 SATs …
‘The fact that Government can so easily abandon these tests, as was demonstrated by the decision made in the last few weeks by Minister Nick Gibb in relation to the Key Stage 1 tests, shows they are nothing to do with pupil progress but are everything to do with ranking schools. This approach is unsustainable and educationally flawed.’
Christine Blower, General Secretary of the NUT, said: ‘This latest leak of questions and answers for today’s SPaG test are a disaster for children, teachers and schools. After months of confusion and mismanagement, they mark the dismal culmination of a dreadful year for primary pupils and their teachers. They constitute an experience which must never be repeated; those who have engineered it must be held to account.
‘Yesterday’s reading test dramatically revealed the utter inappropriateness of the DfE’s conception of age-appropriate primary education, compared with the interests, knowledge and capabilities of learners – even those judged to be above ability.
‘Dozens of teachers reported to the NUT the sheer unhappiness of a testing experience which did not allow pupils to show the best of what they could do, but instead subjected them to baffling, dull and culturally remote material. One teacher wrote, “I was faced at the end of the test with 28 heads bowed in total silence. We are a good school with above average pupils yet only 2 out of 28 finished the paper.”
‘When test design of this sort is married to leaks and maladministration, there is not the slightest chance that primary assessment can provide a fair and accurate representation of what children know and can do. Assessment lacks all credibility: the scores it provides must not be used to inform any judgments about failing or coasting schools, now or in the future. 2016 assessment is a write off, and must be recognised as such by the DfE.
‘For six years, the DfE’s method of working has been to freeze out the teaching profession from discussion of central issues of teaching and learning, and to deride expert opinion. The debacle of 2016 is a direct consequence of that approach. The Union calls for a new and inclusive start in primary education, that can give us the curriculum and assessment system that our pupils need.
‘The DfE should understand that teachers will not accept another 2016, and that the attempt to retain a failing system will be very widely resisted. In primary staff rooms, the mood is “never again”.’
Commenting on statistics released by ChildLine, showing a rise in the number of schoolchildren worried about exam stress, Kevin Courtney, Deputy General Secretary of the NUT, said: ‘Teachers see very clearly the effect of stress on students and are reporting exam stress amongst school children from primary school upwards.
‘Many relate it to the joyless exam factory approach this Government has towards education and the high-stakes nature of testing. Children and young people face so many pressures from social media and day-to-day life. Government education policy should not be adding to this. We have the most tested children in Europe and also some of the unhappiest in the world.
‘We need to take a serious look at the rigid way in which Government policy dictates how we should educate children. If not, we are ensuring that children and young people will continue to bear unnecessary mental strains and stresses.’
