SATS MUST GO!

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Comments from teachers, parents and governors

 

Campaign against SATs starts to take off

 

In the current issue of the NUT magazine there is an article on page 5 saying "Think before you start SATs preparation" which says the National Executive will be discussing a possible boycott of SATs at its next meeting.

Camden NUT thinks the executive should have this discussion and should ballot for an immediate boycott. Below are some of our reasons.

We’d like to know what NUT members in your school think.

Why we should boycott the SATs this year:

  1. Wales and Northern Ireland stopped KS1 SATs last year. Why should we carry with the damage any longer?

  2. The Liberal Democrats have just published a paper calling for the abolition of KS1 SATs. This paper has only just been published, but it shows the growing feeling against the tests.

  3. The University of Ontario has just published a report on the Literacy and Numeracy strategy which says "targets and testing may have unintended negative consequences, such as narrowing the curriculum." This report was published this year (2003) and was commissioned by the Government! There is increasing academic evidence that the tests are educationally unsound.

  4. The chief inspector, David Bell, has just warned that the targets are counterproductive and unattainable. This was made public in the TES late in February. It has stimulated lots of discussion on the BBC website. Feeling is strongly against the tests.

  5. More than 80 children’s authors and illustrators have just written a letter to the TES calling for an end to national tests. We should use this feeling to stop the SATs now.

  6. The tests this year are worse than last year. The new writing paper at KS 1 presents real marking difficulties and workload problems. Stopping the tests is educationally sound and solves this workload problem.

  7. The new KS 3 English tests are causing consternation amongst secondary teachers. For example see the excellent letter calling for a boycott by all the teachers at Thomas Tallis in the TES of 28 Feb.

  8. There are also increasing signs of parental concern both on the BBC website and in the TES. Locally parents at Rhyl have been petitioning against the SATs and are organising a meeting.

Just one argument has been advanced for not starting a boycott this year. That is that so much work has already been done and would be wasted. We argue that if the work is educationally valid then it is not wasted. If the work is just preparation for tests and is not educationally valid then we shouldn’t worry about it.

Let us know urgently what the feeling in your NUT group is.