(pages 10-11) this week shows.
The SATs not only cause stress and misery for teachers and pupils in Year 2, having a detrimental effect on the delivery of the curriculum, they are also preventing the Foundation Stage being implemented properly. The downward pressure on nursery and reception class teachers to start drilling young children in formal literacy and numeracy skills as a precursor to the SATs is intense and almost impossible to resist for many, particularly those teachers who are inexperienced in early years practice.
Parents, too, can become anxious that their four-year-olds should be preparing for SATs and can add to the pressure to start formal learning inappropriately early in nurseries and schools.
Scotland has no SATs for seven-year-olds, and they are to be scrapped or replaced in Wales and Northern Ireland. Once again, England could be left trailing in terms of good practice if this issue is not acted upon.
