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Cate Campbell discusses the new ‘flexible’ approach to key stage 1 testing, explaining how it will affect those in the foundation stage.
News that SATs testing in England will become less stressful for key stage 1 children in future has given the impression that the test will be toned right down and that both pupils and teachers will be in for a much more relaxed time this year. The ‘more flexible’ approach to testing has been welcomed as an end to the top-down pressure that can be experienced in the foundation stage. But some teachers fear the pressure and stress could actually increase.
Key stage 1 SATs testing has changed many times since it was first introduced in 1992 as a practical task-oriented exam. The numerous changes, and the resulting increased workload, have placed considerable pressure on staff. Not only have teachers threatened to boycott the tests but, last year, Ofsted’s chief inspector of schools, David Bell, complained that improvements were being prevented, and teachers were being alienated, by the rigid way SATs tests were carried out.
England is out on a limb here. Scotland already uses teacher assessment rather than SATs tests. Wales scrapped SATs testing for seven-year-olds in 2001, and is now planning to do away with the tests for 11 and 14-year-olds as well, replacing them with a test at the age of 10 which is backed up by teacher assessment.
However, more teacher assessment will be the key to the new type of SATs testing. It was piloted in about a quarter of education authorities during the last school year and evaluated by researchers at Leeds University. They found the new method of testing was at least as accurate and reliable as the old National Curriculum tests.
They also found that it was preferred by teachers and parents, and seemed to reduce stress for the children. They felt teachers’ confidence grew as the year progressed and they became more familiar with the particulars of the scheme.
Though the details of how the scheme will work this year had not been published as EYE went to press, it is thought that teachers will continue to administer tests in English and maths but will do so in less formal circumstances. They will also be able to carry out the tests at any time between January and June of year 2.
The tests, which will be taken from both current and past papers, will inform their overall assessment of the child’s progress during the school year. LEAs will offer support for teachers in doing this and will moderate the support for teacher assessment rather than auditing the test results.
When the new arrangements were announced, education minister Stephen Twigg enthused: ‘For seven year olds, a teacher’s overall, rounded assessment of a child’s progress through the year, underpinned by national tests, will provide a more accurate guide to their progress.’
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has long complained about the way testing, rather than learning, dictates the curriculum, saying SATs testing has a demotivating effect.
Gwen Evans, ATL deputy general secretary, says: ‘This is the DfES goose that has laid the golden egg. We know from members that the trials have been thorough, even exhaustive in some cases. What has been proved is that a child’s learning achievements can be more reliably assessed in normal classroom conditions. No longer will capable seven-year-olds decide that they will fail forever, having done badly in the old SATs tests.’
The way the testing has been carried out up until now relies on a child to perform well on a single occasion, and many teachers have felt this resulted in an unrealistic assessment. As well as improving the accuracy of the assessment, many of the professional organisations have said they feel the new way of testing will relieve the pressure on pupils and give teachers back a sense that their judgement is valued and trusted.
‘It demonstrates that the government, at long last, recognises that teachers can be trusted and that teacher assessment is the right way forward for seven-year-olds,’ says general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, David Hart.
The National Union of Teachers’ general secretary, Steve Sinnott, agrees: ‘The government has listened to teachers. The ending of the dominance of key stage 1 tests is good for teachers, children and parents. The logic must now be for the government to draw on the experience of Wales and Scotland and move to end key stage testing and assessment in all schools. Teacher assessment gives schools and parents the information they need. Trusting teachers at key stage 1 is a major step forward.’
But some of the unions have had reservations. General secretary of the NASUWT, Chris Keates, says that, though the union welcomes the less rigid structure of testing, it has found that the pilot scheme created additional work and pressure. She asserts: ‘It was evident from the information we received that, whilst the government’s intention was for the scheme to be introduced without additional workload and bureaucratic burdens on teachers, the process used in some schools and LEAs had put teachers under additional pressure.
‘NASUWT welcomes the assurances the DfES has given to us that steps will be taken to minimise variations of approach between schools and LEAs to prevent any adverse impact on teachers, particularly from the moderation process.’
The problem seems to be that the work of children whose results are borderline will have to be carefully scrutinised. To support their assessment, it seems teachers will need to produce several pieces of unaided, levelled work. This is easier said than done without a lot of extra work on behalf of both teacher and child.
The standard of a child’s work should obviously improve as the year progresses; the teacher may be able to collect pieces of work which are working towards a level but maybe only one or two which actually meet the moderating criteria. The knock-on effect could be that teachers increase the top-down pressure to ensure children enter year 2 having achieved an even higher standard than at present in order to attain a secure level well before June. And the knock-on from this could be more pressure on the foundation stage to introduce formal learning.
There is no doubt that many schools expect all children to enter year 1 with reading, writing and numeracy skills. Such schools still do not allow children to develop at their own pace, which puts boys in particular under enormous stress, and can turn some off learning altogether. A recent study at Cambridge University found that half of five-year-olds were reporting high levels of stress associated with testing, and the stress levels were even higher among boys.
Jean Gemmell, the general secretary of the Professional Association Of Nursery Nurses (PANN) insists: ‘I would hope there will be less top-down pressure now. It isn’t that we don’t want children to make appropriate progress and succeed; it is about a philosophy concerning what is the right way in which children intellectually grow as well as physically grow. Teacher assessment would allow teachers to educate children, rather than teach them to pass tests, and give a much more accurate picture of children’s educational development.
‘The thing is, of course, that teachers aren’t averse to tests, and teachers do test their pupils. But… children are subjected to something like one hundred-plus tests from the moment they enter school to the moment they leave. And that’s not internal classroom tests, it’s national, public tests. You don’t fatten a calf by weighing it.
‘Tests are putting children under increased stress and they don’t give the best measure of individual pupils’ ability. Testing places extra stress on teachers and parents too. Our main concern is that they [tests] do have an effect on making the curriculum into a straitjacket. Learning ought not to be about that, it should be positive and flexible, starting right from the foundation stage.
‘It would be a complete nonsense if the new arrangements didn’t have an effect on the foundation stage. If key stage 1 is going to be based on internal assessment, then that must spring from appropriate assessment at the foundation stage.’
But will this end up leading to more testing at an earlier stage? Anne Nelson, director of Early Education, the voluntary organisation for early years practitioners, thinks the changes to key stage 1 SATs will have a positive effect.
‘We hope the outcome will be that early years practitioners in the foundation stage can now concentrate on the challenge of a continuous curriculum through to the end of year 2. This will result in more appropriate learning experiences for the children and a level of challenge which is appropriate for their stage of development,’ she says.
‘LEAs will need to ensure that all practitioners in key stage 1 are familiar with the observation and assessment methods used in the foundation stage so they can regain confidence in their own judgements rather than relying on tests.’
You’ll notice an awful lot of the thinking about the new arrangements is based on hope. So let us hope that children do not end up being made to achieve even more even earlier.
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