Tears are no reason to tear up Sats tests completely

The testing system undoubtedly needs improvement, but the bottom line is that there is something to be gained from statutory testing
12th May 2017, 12:00am

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Tears are no reason to tear up Sats tests completely

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/tears-are-no-reason-tear-sats-tests-completely
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On my first day as a fourth year in middle school - or Year 7 as we had just then started calling it - I cried. This wasn’t a transition issue: we’d just moved from the outside block to the first floor, so hardly significant. Nor was it through any trauma presented by the higher challenge or stricter teacher. I was just a conscientious student who desperately wanted to please, but who was faced with a handwriting task. My nemesis.

I wasn’t told off. I wasn’t criticised. I just knew that I couldn’t show myself at my best through a task that required neat handwriting. I still can’t, to be honest. But at the time, wanting to impress Mr Perry as I did, it seemed like a travesty.

I don’t remember the exact detail of the conversation in the art corner, but I know that I came away from it feeling like my best was good enough and that Mr Perry was on my side. I still wish that I had a neater hand, but I learned to put that concern into context.

This week, up and down the country, some children will have found the Sats upsetting. Not because their teachers are evil, or because of a Gradgrindian system, but because they want to do their best and panic sets in when they doubt that they can. The solution to this problem isn’t to scrap testing - just as, in my situation, the solution wasn’t for Mr Perry to stop expecting us to practise handwriting. Instead, we need to do what we can to alleviate those concerns, support those pupils and help them to contextualise their worries.

Reading between the lines

There’s no question that the testing system needs improving. As I write this, the 2017 reading test looms large on the horizon; by the time you read this article, we’ll know whether it was as horrifying as last year’s. But, like with my handwriting, the fact that it was in pretty poor shape was no rationale to indicate that we should abandon it altogether.

In truth, there is something to be gained from statutory testing. A common outcome measure does help government to identify schools which are not achieving as well as they might, and while I might strongly oppose some of the ways they choose to handle that matter, it still seems only right that we have some framework for identifying where additional support might be needed. Again, just because the use of the test results might be flawed, it doesn’t mean that we should abandon the tests.

I’m the first to argue for improvements - and the nonsense of the reading test last year should be the first candidate. But given the choice, I’d take the current bank of tests every time over the ridiculous system of writing assessment. When I carried out a poll - entirely unscientific, I grant you - on Twitter earlier this year, just 15 per cent of respondents said they thought the writing assessment framework led to honest and accurate assessment.

I’m too old to have taken the Year 6 tests myself, but I do look back at my work from those years and wonder what more I could have achieved. I worry that those who argue that we did perfectly well without them might not realise quite what we’re offering when we say that. It strikes me as the same sort of argument that says “never did me any harm”.

I hope that the children in my class this week found the tests were just as they’d been led to expect, that they felt well prepared, and that they recognised that they are just a small part of their Year 6 experience. But one that I’d still rather keep.


Michael Tidd is deputy head at Edgewood Primary School in Nottinghamshire. He tweets @MichaelT1979

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