Sats abolished

You could almost hear a deep sigh from Secondary Schools at the news that the Key Stage 3 exams were to be scrapped. Education secretary Ed Balls announced the abolition of Sats for 14 year olds, claiming they were “not justified” and “less and less relevant” to children’s learning.

Teachers believed that schools were under so much pressure to climb the league tables that they felt they were being forced to ‘teach to test’, focusing on what was going to come up in the tests rather than focusing on feeding the mind, and inspiring their students. The tests were originally brought in to assess the individual child’s progress and inform parents of their child’s achievements while at the same time being used to merit the school as a whole via the league tables, and rate the progress system overall. Using one set of tests to meet these requirements seems to me, totally unreasonable.

It is understood that parents want to know their child’s level of educational achievement, as well as new parents needing data as a basis on which to choose a school, and it would appear that steps have been taken to pilot a new form of test for 11 year olds, but the tests for 14 year olds are thought to be a waste of time.

Was this a revolutionary act from our government, or just a disaster area that couldn’t be avoided?