Peter Shreeve, Assistant District Secretary of the National Education Union comments on the confirmation in the Commons that SATs this year are not going ahead. Ed
Teachers, parents and no doubt many of our younger students will be relieved that the Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson has faced up to reality and cancelled this year’s SATs tests.
“Teaching to the test”
Research from the University College London (UCL) in 2019 concluded that the tests are indicative of a “system which has the wrong priorities”.
We know that ‘teaching to the test’ in younger year groups was noted by Ofsted in 2017 and in this UCL study 74% admitted to “teaching to the test” because of the pressure to get good results.
Extra time to address educational recovery
Thankfully, this particular SATS pressure has been lifted from pupils and staff this year. Schools have now rightly gained some extra time to address the urgent issues of educational recovery.
Pupils are going to need this extra time for their learning and for staff to support their well-being.
This is good news
Now is the time to encourage and resource schools to develop a rich and engaging curriculum.
Hopefully the Secretary of State will realise by next year, that a curriculum driven by tests, especially for younger pupils, was never the way to improve things.
Image: Katerina Holmes under CC BY 2.0
