I passed both the literacy and numeracy tests at the first attempt. But I am disgusted that I had to take them at all. These tests should be a pre-requisite for any teacher training course, not part of the qualification.
Those who started a course three years ago have had them imposed on them - although they had already satisfied their course requirements. Many students have taken, and passed, GCSE maths in the past year or so to allow them to start teacher training - do they really need another maths test?
When I sat the tests, the software didn’t work. When I took the numeracy test, the background screen with the “next” and “previous” buttons often went black - the buttons only showed when I dragged the mouse over hem. And, as I thought a lot of the questions were ambiguous, I had go with my first interpretation because there was no time to do otherwise.
In the literacy test, only certain answers were possible. How many students wasted time repeatedly trying to put punctuation in where the program wasn’t expecting any? Yes, I know they must have been wrong, but how many marks were lost because of the time wasted?
I would suggest that anyone who fails should lodge an appeal. The TTAQTS Support has, so far, only acknowledged but not responded to my complaint of February 19. If everyone who fails appeals, the system will probably collapse completely.
Richard Mundy, PGCE maths, Manchester Metropolitan University .
