Exploring all the options

1st February 2002, 12:00am

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Exploring all the options

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/exploring-all-options
Optional tests can be of real benefit, argues Keith Brindle

I had a colleague who was not impressed by increased testing. “It doesn’t matter how often you weigh a pig” he would say, “it doesn’t get any heavier.” Despite the agricultural metaphor, he cared deeply about the well-being and improvement of his students.

He was right, of course, and many English teachers believe our students suffer because of the number of exams. “Teaching for the test” can become pervasive and restrict development; and test results can be seen as the definitive levels of students’ achievements, rather than one indicator of their progress. Key stage 3 tests are, after all, very limited in their scope. Why should our pupils be subjected to the extra optional tests in Years 7 and 8?

These tests also place pressure on teachers. Assessing them has proved arduous, since the marking schemes are so precise and detailed. But, worse, in the same way thatstudents’ performances are monitored, so the statistics can be used to assess the staff.

However, I believe it is possible to both feed and weigh, without causing distress. Most English departments have given students an exam each year, now the optional tests can be used instead. They seem to me better formulated than many of the exams they are replacing, and to give a clearer assessment of students’ strengths and weaknesses in specified areas.

Linked to the National Literacy Strategy, the reading sections present questions which test understanding at word, sentence and whole-text level. The writing tasks support students by encouraging planning skills long overlooked in some English teaching.

There is no reason why these optional tests should not be useful if used sensitively. Teachers may make the most of them by implementing them with a light touch. So, if students struggle to read the texts in 15 minutes, or to complete their work in the specified time, extra time could be allowed.

Completed responses may be used for diagnosis, confirming, for instance, that Sara can locate information, but struggles to use it; and Majid, famed for his generalisations, still fails to prove his points when presented with appropriate evidence in a formal exam.

The questions dig deeper than I have seen in many internal school exams, while the writing tasks are sensible and appropriate. If heads of department and headteachers accept that the results give only a snapshot of how students are doing, I can see no threat to teachers.

The tests can be seen as just another part of the year’s work. Last-minute cramming is not needed if necessary skills are fed in throughout the course.

What is learned will fit with schools’ programmes of study and support the students in both their SATs and the more important GCSE exams. A simplified mark scheme could remove the other main objection of many teachers.

Provided that the attitude underpinning the tests is positive and sensible, they may be regarded as tools rather than weapons.

Department heads have a crucial role to play, setting testing in a broader context and convincing heads that tests in English are part of assessment at KS3, not its culmination.

That is a philosophy of which my former colleague would have approved. It might even have stopped him leaving the profession.

Keith Brindle teaches English. His ‘QCA Test Techniques’ for Year 7 and Year 8 arepublished this month (Folens)

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