Tory proposals on SATS 'the worst of all worlds' says NASUWT

15 June 2009

Commenting on statements by Michael Gove, Conservative Party Education Spokesperson, announcing that a Tory Government would abolish Key Stage 2 SATs in primary schools and have them administered by secondary school teachers, with the results still being used to judge the performance of the primary schools, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union in the UK, said:

"If the obsessive opponents of the SATs think that this announcement would solve their problems with testing they should think again.

"This would be the worst of all worlds.

"The grim reality is already evident from this brief announcement.

"The divisive performance league tables will remain, only now the primary school rankings will be based on the results of tests internally administered and marked by secondary schools.

"The implications for primary and secondary school teachers are appalling.

"Secondary school teachers would face an imposed system of testing, the increased workload of marking the tests and the time-consuming, bureaucratic burden of a system of moderation which inevitably accompanies internal marking.

"It is disingenuous for Michael Gove to suggest that to transfer the SATs to secondary schools just avoids duplication as they already test pupils on entry.

"How secondary schools currently assess pupils on entry varies widely. The system used is determined by the individual school and is usually carried out routinely as part of individual subject lessons. SATs would simply become an extra formalised layer of testing which schools would have no choice but to implement.

"Primary school teachers would fare no better. They would still find themselves forced to teach to the tests as the performance of their pupils in the SATs would still be critical for the ranking of their school. They are already buckling under bureaucratic systems of pupil assessment and this would undoubtedly increase if SATs were removed.

"A further significant flaw in the Conservative's proposal is that the evaluation of the performance of primary schools will be in the hands of secondary schools.

"Judgements of secondary school performance are based on the value-added they provide on the primary school SATs results. Who, therefore, could blame them if they were to mark and assess the tests with far less impartially than external markers? All the hard work primary schools invest in their pupils would then be for nothing.

"What confidence could anyone, including parents have in such a system?

"This is just another policy announcement to add to the ever growing list of reasons of why education would not be safe in the hands of the Tories."

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