Turning the tables

Thousands of seven-year-olds across England took their SATs tests this month, but an array of early years educators and academics hope they will be one of the last year groups in the country to sit the Key Stage 1 assessments.

Critics say SATs tests undermine appropriate delivery of the Early Learning Goals and Foundation Stage, put pupils and teachers under intolerable pressure, constrict the curriculum, are an expensive waste of money and should be scrapped. Opposition comes from early years practitioners, academics, primary teachers and heads, some of whom are calling for teachers and schools to refuse to take part in the tests next year. Members of the National Union of Teachers voted recently for a boycott of the national curriculum tests in England, which they said labelled children as failures, while a recent poll for the Times Educational Supplement found 96 per cent of primary teachers supported abandoning tests for seven-year-olds. They want to bring England into line with the rest of the UK. SATs were never introduced in Scotland, while the Welsh Assembly has voted to scrap the Key Stage 1 tests and in Northern Ireland they are to be replaced by annual reports.