I’ve taught maths for nearly 45 years and, since retiring, I have been a volunteer in my local primary school for two mornings a week. One result of all that experience is that I have become a conspiracy theorist, and at night I often wonder about the real reasons for some of the government’s ideas about schools; I am deeply concerned that these ideas are less about education and more about political success.

Why, for example, have they dramatically changed the key stage 2 Sats? Here’s my reasoning: to be politically “successful”, it is a good idea for results to improve each year.  But, of course, it is not mathematically possible to keep improving results for ever. If, for example, you have an 80 per cent success rate and you want to improve by at least 1 per cent each year, then you only have a life of, at most, 20 years before you pass the 100 per cent success rate.

So what did Michael Gove decide to do when in office?  Clearly, he thought he would have to make the assessments harder, so that he could bring down the success rate and then in future years they could start making results improve again. Well, that’s certainly been a success for his successor, Nicky Morgan.

I spend many nights wondering about whether there is actually any point in having primary school Sats tests at all. In the recent primary assessment special in TES, the chief executive of the Harris Federation said “Secondary schools need more accurate information”.  However, according to the government, different primary schools perform at different levels, so doesn’t this mean that the KS2 Sats results might be an unfair comparison between students from different primary schools? 

Would it not therefore be better to simply teach at least Year 7 groups in mixed-ability classes, so that secondary school subject specialists could make their own decisions about student potential, instead of asking primary school teachers - who generally have to take responsibility for multiple subjects not just one - to have to end students’ primary school years by tests rather than by enjoyment.

I’m reaching the conclusion that primary testing is just part of the government blame game designed to put the blame on schools, teachers, students and parents simply so that blame does not extend to the government.

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