Sats Tests: Good or Bad?

When they were introduced I thought they were good. The problem with primary education at that time was that it was lacking in focus, perhaps high on wellbeing which was good, but lacking in learning, which was bad. Spelling, reading, tables and arithmetic were often handled in such a whimsical fashion that home tutoring in the essentials by an engaged parent was a must for any sort of achievement.

Nearly twenty years later things have moved on. Mostly both parents work and for long hours. The dynamics of the nuclear family are different. There is a much better acceptance that the basics in everything have to be taught and measured with rigour. What is wrong now is how to measure. Because what happened as the consequence of tests and league tables is that the emphasis has shifted from acquiring essential knowledge and skills, to instead being taught how to pass exams. This not only applied in primary schools but in secondary schools also and, until recent reforms, the modular system for basic GCSEs, led to multi-takes and exam churning to massage the tables, at great cost to the quality and integrity of the education offer itself.  This was certainly stressful and unrewarding for many students and, strategically worse, almost a nightmare of stress and overwork for teachers, which is why half of them leave the profession after training.

I say these things with confidence because for a total of 50 continuous years I myself  had at least one child (six in total) somewhere in the British education system, from nursery school to university graduation. I now have a fully qualified teacher in the family. Twice during the period of half a century I was a school governor, on the second occasion as an Additional Governor parachuted in by the local education authority to a school in special measures. So I have seen times change for better and for worse and I am fully briefed as to the current state of play.

I therefore applaud Labour’s plan to scrap the sats they originally introduced. I would go further and abolish GCSEs, switching to a graduation system built firmly on the stages of the education journey and based on the ability to perform the task or present the knowledge, where achievement is recorded in a continuous flow.  From age 16 there should be  much more focussed options to take the academic route or, and of equal status and availability, the skills and technical pathway. In the end we need engineers and plumbers more than we need historians.