From next year it will be compulsory for every Year 4 student to sit a quick five–minute times table test. It’s already been piloted in some schools and already there are critics crawling out of the woodwork. Some are bemoaning that children are being taught to the test and others have complained it’s making the…
Primary schools up and down the country would have received this year’s SATs results yesterday and spent all day digesting the figures to see where they stand. And with predictable great timing, a survey of primary school teachers was published yesterday morning just as headteachers were crunching the headline figures. Low and behold, 97% of…
In a few weeks’ time, we will have another Prime Minister and just like the last three years, the entire focus of the Conservative leadership campaign has been centred on Brexit. I appreciate that whoever takes up the mantle will urgently need to look at resolving the Brexit issue but it would also be nice…
Right now Year 6 children across the country are sitting their SATs and every year it attracts a hue and cry from critics. Now the official opposition are saying this valuable measure to push up standards would be abolished if they came into power. And Ofsted has also announced that it will be taking less…
A survey of primary headteachers published today shows that an overwhelming majority of them think SATs as too stressful for teachers and the children. It doesn’t matter how many of them decry the use of SATs the fact is independent verification of how children are performing is essential if we’re to ensure young people reach…