Testing times

We have known for a while that Sats - or statutory assessments - are there to provide the government with metrics about schools, and have very little to do with children's learning. We need to assess children's learning to ensure they are progressing. But there are several problems with Sats that constantly and regularly rear their ugly heads.

Firstly, there are many better ways to assess children's learning than testing. I wrote some time ago about some of the alternative ways we can track pupil progress without testing. There is also the argument that Sats are very superficial and tend only to test children's memory capacity, rather than what they have actually learned. Children don't learn any more, or any better through testing - they learn through good feedback and authentic experiences.

There is also evidence that children are being put under severe and unnecessary stress, and that many are physically sick before a test. This certainly isn't a helpful way to encourage children to pursue learning in the future. A bad experience in school at an early age can colour children's views on education for life. It doesn't look as though Sats will be going away soon though, because the government pays for state education, and the government therefore wants to track the success or failure of the schools it funds. There are several recent criticisms of the unfairness of Sats, including the Cambridge Primary Review Trust and the National Union of Teachers. Even the Independent weighs in, claiming that children in England must face more standardised testing than any other country on the planet. The UK government seems to be obsessed with testing and measuring everything.

Perhaps the most serious problem of Sats is that teachers (who know their own reputation is at stake) will tend to teach to the test, so that as many pupils as possible pass the examinations. This leads to superficial learning, a narrow interpretation of the curriculum, and ultimately, a poor learning experience. We need to support teaching, not distort it.

Photo by Wecometolearn on Flickr


Testing times by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.