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Just let us teach!


The NUT, and many others, would like to see an and to SATs. But what sort of assessment should replace them? Tina Humber explores the options and gives her personal view.


From nursery, teachers are taking photographs, recording and collecting evidence to support their assessments of where children are at on their learning journey. As children reach Key Stage 2, the assessment focuses are predominately in English and maths, and we all know what that means… SATs!


SATs are a method of comparing children’s ability against local and national standards of achievement. However, I believe that, instead of placing so much importance on such a rigid and narrow measure of attainment, the Government should trust the professionals – teachers. Schools can work in clusters to moderate work and come to an agreed understanding of what work merits a Level 3, Level 4 and so on (something many clusters of schools have been doing with Assessing Pupils’ Progress).


The money that would be saved not administering, printing, posting, and marking SATs could be put back into schools’ budgets to improve the quality of teaching, reduce class sizes and fund more continuing professional development for teachers to help them cater more effectively for children who struggle.


But if schools no longer did SATs, how would we assess children’s progress and monitor national standards?


Single level tests


Single Level Tests in English reading, English writing and mathematics have been piloted in a small number of schools by the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA). The tests assess pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding at a specific, single level (Level 3, 4, 5 or 6). Would they be a good replacement for KS2 SATs?


Well, if, for example, a teacher levels a child’s writing as a Level 3a and then gives the child a Level 3 test, lo and behold – the child gets a high Level 3. So what is the point of testing? As the saying goes, you don’t weigh a pig to make it fat.


National sampling


What would make much better economical sense and be beneficial to schools is national sampling. In Teaching Times (May 2010) Christine Blower, General Secretary of the NUT, said: “We would like to see the next government introduce a national sampling system for English and mathematics tests in Year 6, which they have already done for science in Year 6 and for all subjects in Year 9. A sampling system would give a national picture of pupil achievement without identifying individual schools or children.”


But sensible strategies and policies are not something that happen much in education!


What schools, and all who sail in them, need are processes that support and help improve areas of weakness. They don’t need systems of assessment that judge and destroy what the school has managed to achieve with the children using its unique resources and staffing.


APP


In my school over the past couple of years we have been trying Assessing Pupils’ Progress (APP – see case study). Doing APP in English and maths for three to six children in a class helps teachers feel secure in the judgements they are making regarding levelling children’s ability. It gives them a common language of assessment to use with colleagues, and makes them grow in professional confidence to be able to justify what they are teaching.


But using APP as an assessment tool for all the children in a class damages teachers’ work-life balance because of the hours it takes to complete. It duplicates the assessment processes that are already present in schools and undermines the profession by not allowing individual schools to do what works best for them.


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