Ofsted’s national director of education has criticised primary schools that insist on “beasting” pupils in English and Maths in order to prepare them for Sats tests.
Sean Harford was speaking at a fringe meeting at the NASUWT teaching union’s annual conference in Birmingham today.
He talked about the importance of maintaining a broad and balanced curriculum, and said inspectors were being asked to challenge schools that were failing to provide one.
The fact that only English and maths were tested at the end of KS2 meant some schools were focusing too much on those subjects, at the expense of others, he said.
He told attendees: “Beasting children in english and maths, and just keep[ing] on doing it, is probably detrimental. I cry - literally cry - when I go into schools...and they just keep on being given comprehension exercises, because they know that the reading test has comprehension it it.
“Comprehension is clearly understanding of what you read. You don’t get better at it by doing comprehension exercises. You get better at understanding stuff you read that’s unfamiliar by reading loads of other stuff - in history, geography, RS [religious studies], whatever those subjects would be.
“And if they’re the subjects they’re being withdrawn from, to sit and do comprehension exercises, not only are they not getting a broad and balanced curriculum, they’re probably not going to achieve the things the school thinks they’re achieving, which is making their reading better. And that’s a great example of where people just can’t see the wood from the trees.”
His comments were in response to a question from a teacher who knew of a primary school that was teaching English and maths in the morning, and other subjects in the afternoon.
Lower-attaining pupils were being withdrawn from the afternoon lessons to focus even more on those two core subjects, she said.
Two weeks ago, Mr Harford raised concerns that “outstanding” schools - particularly primary schools - were narrowing the curriculum in an attempt to stay below Ofsted’s radar by keeping KS2 results high.
He returned to this theme in today’s session, saying some primary schools were focusing on reading, writing and maths to “game” the system.
He said: “I think that, because only reading writing and maths are tested at the end of KS2,...I’m not saying they all do it, but there is a strategy of some primary schools that are ‘outstanding’ to only focus on those three things.
“It’s become something that’s game-able.”
He wants inspectors to challenge this type of practice and to reward schools that offer a diverse curriculum.
He said: “What I want to do is empower our inspectors to say, ‘I can see you’ve got great scores at the end of KS2, but I can equally see that you’re not teaching anything in Year 6 other than English and maths.
“So I’m going to challenge that, because it’s not giving kids a broad and balanced curriculum.”
