Teachers have outlined their campaign to “smash” the government’s regime of testing and assessment in primary schools.

Yesterday, the NUT section of the National Education Union voted to explore ways of disrupting and stopping the government’s plans to pilot baseline assessments of Reception-aged children in 2019.

This morning, delegates passed a further motion saying the government’s primary assessment policies “deny children the right to an all-round, personally fulfilling and high-quality education” and increase stress for learners and teachers.

Lesley Koranteng, of Croydon, South London, told delegates: “Previous speakers have said one-day strikes do not work. They are correct - they do not work. We need to come back next year having led campaigns, having all set up More Than a Score groups, and having built campaigns against testing in all areas.

“Then we ballot, and we win, and we smash the tests.”

Calls for a ballot of all the union’s members for a boycott of all high -takes testing were struck out after yesterday’s motion was passed.

‘Defeating key stage 1 Sats’

Amanda Martin, a member of the NUT’s executive, vowed to defeat the baseline assessment, and use this to then “defeat key stage 1 Sats, and then we will defeat key stage 2”.

She outlined plans to work with parents, heads in the NEU, governors and heads who are not in the NEU “to make the political landscape almost impossible for the Tories to continue”.

Duncan Morrison, of Lewisham, south-east London, decried “the systematic abuse of our children that our members are forced to carry out every week in primary schools now”.

The conference motion “rejects the views expressed by [schools minister] Nick Gibb that the best way to tackle exam stress is to create more of it”.

It calls on the joint executive council of the NEU to ensure that its campaign to stop the baseline assessment “through industrial action if necessary” is linked to the campaign against Sats in key stages 1 and 2, “aiming to create the best conditions to stop Sats and baseline assessment in 2019”.

It also calls for it to develop a campaign with the More Than a Score group to highlight to parents “the need for an alternative system of assessment for primary-age children”.

Following yesterday’s vote, a Department for Education spokesperson said: “Tests and teacher assessments at primary school form a fundamental part of a child’s education, but they are not intended to hinder their development or cause undue stress. We trust teachers to administer tests in a way that does not put undue pressure on pupils.

“The baseline assessment is not an accountability measure and won’t be published. It is purely to assess children’s starting point so that we can see how well schools help children to make progress during their time at primary school.”

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