Thanks Russell for standing up for Teachers everywhere.
Tag: UK
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The pendulum swings back on school tests | BBC
Let’s hope that NZ Government can make the change before they have to go back on this. Let’s ditch any National based assessment for primary schoolers. It’s too much. Too much pressure on the children. Too much pressure on the teachers. All for what? Thankfully the UK Government are beginning to see that what they’re doing isn’t helping…
30 March 2017
If news stories could have a soundtrack, then this scrapping of tests in the early years of primary school would have the creaking sound of a pendulum slowly swinging back.
The Department for Education is proposing that national curriculum tests taken by seven-year-olds in England could be ditched.
Instead there would be an assessment of five-year-olds by a teacher – a so-called “baseline test” – which would be used as a starting point for measuring progress through primary school.
It represents a step backwards from more and more testing – a shift in attitude as much as policy.
And it raises again the thorny question of what kind of tests young children should face in primary school.
Are such tests a helpful indicator for identifying pupils’ needs? Or are they an unnecessary pressure – a case of too much, too young? And are such tests going to mean a paper mountain of extra bureaucracy for teachers, hindering rather than helping learning?
‘Hope over experience’
The teachers’ unions have broadly given their support to the government’s announcement to row back on the tests for seven year olds in reading, writing, maths and science.
But the National Union of Teachers still says the idea of a baseline test for four or five-year-olds remains a “triumph of hope over experience”.
The teachers’ union questions whether this can ever be a sufficiently reliable test to be used as a fixed point against which to measure all the following years of a child’s progress.
But the counter-argument to this is that you have to start somewhere.
If schools are to be held to account for how much progress children have made by the age of 11 – then it has to be measured against a starting point.
And isn’t the natural starting point in the first year?
There is also a strong argument that it is the low achievers and the disadvantaged who will be most in need of the extra help that a test might identify.
And at the last general election, all three main political parties were sympathetic to the principle of baseline testing.
But the announcement on testing also raises another great back and forth of the education pendulum. How much data is too much?
Parents’ evenings, with spreadsheets and targets, can feel like a chat with the accountants.
And for the schools themselves, the accumulation and analysis of data has become a major part of their working lives.
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Reform ‘high stakes’ primary tests, MPs urge
As we look to the future of education in this country, why is it that we are following the trend and examples from the UK? Yet our Education Minister(s) head over there to see their awesome examples of how to destroy public education…
Children’s education in England is being skewed by the use of high-stakes tests taken by 11-year-olds as a school league table measure, say MPs.
Annual test results should be replaced in the tables by a three-year rolling average to “lower the stakes”, says the Commons Education Select Committee.
The current system has led to a narrow curriculum and “unnecessary stress” on pupils and teachers, argues the report.
Last year, new tougher tests for 11-year-olds saw passes drop sharply.
Ministers maintain that parents have a right to expect testing in schools to show whether their children are gaining the right skills in maths and literacy.
But the committee says the close link between the tests at 11 and school accountability can “lead to a narrowing of the curriculum and ‘teaching to the test’, as well as affecting teacher and pupil well-being”.
It wants the current system scrapped, with three-year rolling averages for schools published instead of the results of individual year groups.
‘Held to account’
The report also calls for greater emphasis in Ofsted inspections on a broad and balanced curriculum.
Committee chairman Neil Carmichael said too much emphasis on test results had led to too much “focus on English and maths at the expense of other subjects like science, humanities and the arts”.
“It is right that schools are held to account for their performance but the government should act to lower the stakes and help teachers to deliver a broad, balanced and fulfilling curriculum for primary school children.”
The report says poor implementation of the new system last year, with “guidance delayed and test papers leaked online”, caused significant disruption in schools.
The MPs want ministers to reconsider the new writing assessment which emphasises “technical aspects like grammar and spelling, over creativity and composition”.
“The balance of evidence we received did not support the proposition that focusing on specific grammatical techniques improved the overall quality of writing.”
They also want spelling, punctuation and grammar tests for 11-year-olds to become non-statutory.
Ministers recently announced proposals to scrap tests for seven-year-olds, following years of pressure from teachers, parents and educationalists.
The Department for Education is consulting on a new assessment for pupils when they first start school – but the report urges caution when introducing a “baseline” measure.
“It should be designed as a diagnostic tool to help teachers identify pupils’ needs and must avoid shifting negative consequences of high-stakes accountability to early years,” they warn.
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Post-Mortem: UK Public Schooling
Post Mortem: UK public schooling.
Family: UK Government – related to: US, NZ.
Death: Terminated by family.
Age: 100 years of publicly funded education
References: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35814215
General Body Condition: Diminished frame with minimal experts. Main organs shut down. Donors needed.
CLINICAL HISTORY:
The patient had undergone a variety of surgeries recently, and had come under attack from GERM(s) in quite a severe way. The use of GERM had become quite pronounced and at this time, the although the doctors recommended further diagnosis be undertaken from specialists, the family has asked that the life support be switched off and the body be laid to rest.
POST-MORTEM FINDINGS:
- Poor academic results according to nationalised testing
- Poor performing teachers at schools with poor results. (Unconfirmed)
- Large quantities of GERM infecting the hosts (Department of Education)
- MGD (Michael Gove Disease) present in host from 2010.
- Morgan-Nicky Virus spread throughout workforce from 2011.
- Strong discomfort from Local Authorities.
- Records show that GERM had affected only 14.5% of the 16,766 Public Schools. It was based on this data that lead family to believe that terminating public schools was a good idea.
It is with regret that Public Schooling in the UK will be terminated, as of Thursday 17 March, 2016.