Last week, the House of Commons education select committee was sent a “study” from the General Teaching Council claiming its members are convinced that the existing assessment system must be changed. One argument used is that pupils are being psychologically damaged by too many tests.
Studying the poor GCSE results for 2006, I think there is an argument for more testing. The quality of spelling and use of language is well below European standards and the quality of university dissertations is at an all time low. The results of tests at 7, 11and 14 have provided excellent monitoring of the quality of teaching and learning, and have provided benchmarks for parents to judge the quality of schools. If we do away with tests, what concrete evidence would parents have to judge schools’
success?
;News SECTION:Features NO PHYSICAL FILETony Callaghan Norwich
