One effect of the pandemic not yet wholly appreciated is the way it has exposed the weakness in assessing children’s progress at primary school level. A dramatic shake-up of the SATs system around four years ago has left educators and parents unaware of exactly how children in this age range are faring. Before the changes,…
Last week a survey of parents revealed that a large majority measure a school’s success on how happy the children are. Meanwhile, a very small percentage said they took SATs results into consideration when judging where to send their child to school and 73% said they thought their children were under too much pressure from…
August saw one of the education success stories of the year. You may have read about the Michaela Free School in London and its inspirational headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh recording GCSE results any grammar school would be proud of. Michaela, which is based in the deprived area of Brent, saw more than half (54%) of its students…
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…
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…