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How Tests Are Damaging Children and Primary Education

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How Tests Are Damaging Children and Primary Education The Mismeasurement of Learning How tests are damaging children and primary education Reclaiming Schools The Evidence and the Arguments In 2016 47% of pupils failed to reach the ‘expected standard’ in the KS2 tests (Reading, Writing, Mathematics). In effect, due to poorly constructed and impossibly difficult tests, nearly half our 11-year-olds left their primary school carrying a ‘failure’ notice. Twice as many August-born children (the youngest in the year) failed the phonics check as September-born (the oldest). The same occurred with KS1 SATs. In other words, many thousands of children were ‘failed’ because they were not old enough. Teachers had worked hard to narrow the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and other pupils in the years up to 2015. The KS1 attainment gap doubled in 2016. There is a tide in the affairs of men, When taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. Introduction The system of assessment In 2016, the concerns of imposed on English primary teachers, and parents, have schools is a failure. In 2016, it reached new heights. In an NUT has produced a situation in survey, more than 90% of which nearly half of all eleven primary teachers identified year olds were judged not ready fundamental problems with the for secondary school. But this assessment system. Parents, counter-intuitive outcome is not likewise, made a forceful its only problem. It has become statement, by withdrawing their a notorious example of teaching children from school in the week to the test: it narrows the before SATs. Working with curriculum; it prioritises the many other organisations, the production of test scores above NUT intends to make the need the provision of support for to transform the whole system children’s learning. In some of primary assessment an issue cases, it damages children’s that policy-makers cannot sense of well-being. The ignore. We hope that The burdens it imposes on teachers Mismeasurement of Learning are unjustifiably heavy. The provokes the discussions and aspirations of teachers and the the arguments that are an capacities of pupils are essential part of this campaign. frustrated by a system that is not fit for purpose. It is essential that the troubles of primary education are exposed and debated. That is why the Kevin Courtney National Union of Teachers is General Secretary, pleased to publish this National Union of Teachers collection of articles. The Mismeasurement of Learning explains how primary education got into its present state; it draws from the experiences of teachers and researchers to make a detailed analysis of the way that assessment works; it opens the door to thinking about alternatives. 3 CONTENTS Introduction by Kevin Courtney, General Secretary NUT 1. What this publication sets out to do: activists and academics together Jon Berry 2. How testing took centre stage Roger Murphy 3. Campbell’s Law... or how the language of numbers does a disservice to our children Richard Pring 4. Testing times and the thirst for data: for what? Alpesh Maisuria 5. Developmentally informed teaching: challenging premature targets in early learning Pam Jarvis 6. ‘Datafication’ in the early years Guy Roberts-Holmes and Alice Bradbury 7. An old and professional alternative to the present system Michael Bassey 8. Flawed arguments for phonics Margaret Clark 9. A focus group discussion with Teesside primary teachers 10. Mathematics: conceptual understanding or counting by the rules? Gawain Little 11. Primary arts are in trouble Pat Thomson 12. Assessment and testing in Wales David Egan 13. Everyone’s educational future is always in the making: Learning without Limits Patrick Yarker 14. Speeding up the treadmill: Primary tests and Secondary exams Terry Wrigley 15. Three assessment myths John Coe 16. ‘Since Christmas I have only taught Literacy and Numeracy’: what the 2016 SATs taught us Ken Jones 5 1. What this publication sets out to do: activists and academics together Even though some strident understanding pedagogy and ‘miniature centres of voices would have us believe challenging poorly informed calculation’. Michael Bassey otherwise, there is a place in the opinion, teachers can go about offers a glimpse of the past in busy lives of teachers for theory. the business of educating the the form of case study There is also a case for looking whole child more confidently. observations of teachers carried carefully at evidence. It seems out in the 1970s. He shows real Roger Murphy provides the odd that such an obvious point and inspiring alternatives to historical context for the current even needs to be re-stated. But current methods, to promote situation, tracing the way in teachers, teacher educators the all-round development of which testing became conflated and, of course, students and every child. with false notions of parents, have been faced with a accountability. This became the Margaret Clark brings an barrage of policy that has been basis for a punitive surveillance expert’s eye to the myths about driven by dogma, ideology and system which is undermining phonics. She points to the lack good old-fashioned prejudice education. Richard Pring takes of evidence behind the for over twenty years. This up the point by looking at the Government’s insistence on pamphlet, along with its way in which the managerialist synthetic phonics as opposed predecessor, Reclaiming language of target-setting and to a judicious combination of Schools, attempts to recover delivery, adopted from the methods for teaching reading, some of that lost ground. business world, has distorted and to the deep flaws in the Of those voices which have teaching and learning. Alpesh ‘phonics check’. attempted to drown out Maisuria comments on the A focus group discussion with knowledge, expertise and inappropriate transfer of several Teesside primary experience, none has been methods from the natural teachers shows the devastating more important and influential sciences into education. He impact of the new KS2 tests on than that of Michael Gove. He asks the basic question about children in one of England’s claimed in 2011, with absolutely what the real purpose of our poorest areas. This is no evidence whatsoever, that obsession with data collection demoralising pupils and student-teachers found could be, thereby raising the narrowing the curriculum into university-based teacher ultimate, but often ignored idea test preparation. The KS2 education ‘too theoretical’. of what education is for! reading test is analysed to show He dubbed academics who Pam Jarvis shows how nursery how far removed the reading is opposed his curriculum plans and kindergarten approaches to from these children’s life as ‘the Blob’. This distrust of young children are being experience. Gawain Little knowledge later informed his eclipsed and the early years of demonstrates that there are Brexit campaign, when he education are being similar problems with Maths: confidently declared that ‘Britain ‘schoolified’ under pressure method is prized above has had enough of experts’. from early testing. Impossible conceptual understanding. The This publication gives space to targets are resulting in a question of curriculum experts. Its aim is to equip ‘tsunami of mental health narrowing is pursued by Pat teachers with some arguments problems’. Guy Roberts- Thomson, who points to the and research that will help them Holmes and Alice Bradbury virtual disappearance of arts in their daily arguments with draw on interviews with nursery education in many schools, school managers – or even and reception class teachers to whilst celebrating those schools colleagues – who seem to demonstrate the ‘datafication’ which still prioritise it. One of the believe that the regime of of the early years. They show consequences is that children testing and data collection is how inappropriate pressure miss out on vital cultural and inevitable or, worse still, the best from Ofsted is wiping out play, creative experiences unless way to ‘raise standards’. By and how children are becoming their parents can provide it. 6 David Egan’s article on Wales power of teachers and parents Further readings and shows that there are other, to remove an oppressive references: more productive approaches to system of measurement. Berry, J (2016) Teachers curriculum and assessment, Teachers are not opposed to undefeated: How global beyond the current horizons of assessment. We all need to education reform has failed to English policy-makers. Patrick know how children are crush the spirit of educators Yarker introduces the notion of progressing and, from time to (Trentham Books) ‘learning without limits’, which time, testing their knowledge challenges prevailing notions of Hutchings, M (2015) Exam and understanding is the right fixed ability and potential in factories? The impact of thing to do. The contributors to children. Terry Wrigley looks at accountability measures on the pamphlet, however, all the way the testing treadmill children and young people . argue that the emphasis on dominates our children’s lives, www.teachers.org.uk/files/ standardised, high-stakes from the early years to the end exam-factories.pdf testing is seriously of secondary school. His article disproportionate. We argue that The www.reclaimingschools.org points to real alternatives for it has had an adverse effect on blog for up-to-date analysis of curriculum and assessment. the ability of teachers to make curriculum and assessment, John Coe debunks some autonomous decisions that along with many other prevailing myths about the genuinely enhance learning. campaigning issues. An index of necessity and benefits of What is worse is the time- posts concerned with primary standardized tests, showing consuming drudgery that testing can be found at how more productive and testing and data–collection can http://tinyurl.com/jd54cv7 reliable feedback can be generate – time that could be provided by well-managed and better spent either preparing sensitive teacher assessment.
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