More rigorous tests to be introduced for seven year-olds
Speaking at the Policy Exchange, Morgan reaffirmed the government’s commitment to ensuring all pupils leave school with the proper literacy and numeracy skills, announcing plans for more rigorous testing for seven year-olds and compulsory re-sits for those that fail to meet standards.
The government will look at the testing for pupils to make sure that they provide a firm basis for calculating progress, which Morgan claims will be ’as robust and rigorous as it needs to be’.
Morgan said that these would be ‘tests’ and not ‘exams’ and that schools will need to manage them in a ‘non-stressful way’.
Additionally, there are also proposals to introduce compulsory re-sits for under performing pupils, which the government claims will make sure every child starts secondary school ‘ready to succeed’.
The plans have led to criticism from teachers unions. Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “Primary schools are already under immense pressure from having to introduce an untried baseline assessment scheme this year alongside a new primary curriculum, and new tests at the end of key stage 2. Yet more changes to testing will not improve children’s English or maths.”
Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, also questioned the government’s plans, saying that more testing does not improve children’s learning. He said: “It is quite staggering the degree to which the government is unable to understand how their approach to the measurement of the performance of schools, and the system as a whole, is turning schools into exam factories. Time and again the government’s accountability agenda mistakes extra testing for better learning.
“The UK already has the most excessively tested children in the whole of Europe. Parents, teachers and head teachers will be alarmed to see the latest proposals from Nicky Morgan which suggests bringing back SATs for seven year-olds a decade after their abolition. Children and young people urgently need the formal assessment burden on them reduced. More tests at seven, involving the labelling and grading of young children, is simply the very last thing that is needed to help improve outcomes or learning.”
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