In the survey, more than 3,000 primary and secondary school teachers, including those teaching Key Stages 2 and 3, expressed overwhelming hostility to the SATs tests. Tests at age seven were given the thumbs-down by 92.1 per cent of 669 Key Stage 1 teachers surveyed. Of 1,047 Key Stage 2 teachers questioned, 87 per cent opposed tests, while 84.9 per cent of 689 Key Stage 3 teachers were against tests for 14-year-olds.
Of all the teachers surveyed, 94.5 per cent said they believed the tests caused adverse effects in schools. More than 86 per cent felt they narrowed the curriculum offered to pupils, and over a third said the tests had led to a deterioration in pupils' behaviour.
NUT general secretary Doug McAvoy said, 'The tests narrow the curriculum, limiting children's opportunities, and the downward pressure from league tables forces teachers to teach to the test.'
Pat Wills, national chair of Early Education and a primary school headteacher in Blackpool, said, 'The results of the survey reflect the fact that teachers generally believe these tests, particularly at six or seven years of age, are inappropriate.' She added that the SATs tests at Key Stage 1 had produced a damaging knock-on effect on 'the excellent work being done at the Foundation Stage. Teachers feel pressured into introducing more formal work in year two'.
Mrs Wills said, 'We must be the only country in the world to put our children through this hell. It's making teachers, parents and children feel anxious.' She said last summer she had been 'encouraged' to make her school's 90 pupils in year two take their SATs tests in the school hall 'as if they were 16-year-olds doing GCSEs'.
But Mrs Wills said she felt reassured by the new Foundation Stage profile, which is replacing baseline assessment in England, because 'it is ongoing, continuous assessment, involves parents, and very much reflects what the child knows'. Baseline assessment was carried out in the first seven weeks of children beginning their formal education, while the Foundation Stage profile will now be completed at the end of the summer term.
Eva Lloyd, chief executive of the National Early Years Network, welcomed the move towards continuous assessment and said it could become a template for improved testing mechanisms in later years. An NUT spokeswoman said the changes in Foundation Stage assessment marked a welcome shift 'away from labelling towards a more diagnostic approach'.
