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.
Competitive ordeal
Opponents of SATsagree that there still needs to be some form of assessment so teachers can plan class work and tell parents how their children are performing. But their complaint is with the structure of the SATs and the way the Government operates them, by setting ever more ambitious targets and linking the results to school league tables.
Paul Noble, a retired head teacher and writer on education, thinks that teachers, worrying about performance-related pay, league tables and maintaining their school's reputation, concentrate on the key subjects covered by SATs at the expense of the whole curriculum. Instead of being a simple gauge of children's attainments the tests have become a stressful and competitive ordeal for teachers, parents and pupils alike. 'The system is extremely costly,' he says. 'Money has to be spent on training teachers to administer SATs, and heads spend money on additional support for administering SATs. Money that might be spent elsewhere gets diverted to SATs.' He also notes that teachers exert pressure, directly and indirectly, on their colleagues in the lower classes, including nursery and reception, to begin preparing children for tests.
Professor Janet Moyles is chairman of TACTYC, the professional association Training, Advancement and Co-operation in Teaching Young Children, which is launching a campaign against SATs at seven years old. She says the group believes the tests result in over-formalisation of the Key Stage 1 curriculum. 'With the welcome advent of the Foundation Stage this has created real dilemmas for practitioners, especially those in reception classes who now belong within the Foundation Stage but find themselves under downward pressure from KS1.'
Early years expert Marian Whitehead says, 'Reception teachers should be working within the Foundation Stage according to the principles of active learning and play-based learning, but suddenly there is pressure because of SATs and that all stops.'
Early years consultant Margaret Edgington adds, ' SATs at seven has a terrible knockdown effect on the curriculum. The Foundation Stage will never be properly implemented while they are in place.
'I am hopeful that when the Government sees what happens in Wales they will learn from it. I think in Wales we will see the Foundation Stage for three- to seven-year-olds bed down and their results at 11 will be much more impressive than in England.'
Physically unready
A recent TACTYC meeting on SATs at seven concluded, 'Young children are both physically and psychologically unready for many of the tasks they are asked to perform. For example, the bones and muscles of the hand and arm are ill-equipped at so young an age to hold a pencil with sufficient accuracy and grip to write effectively. Similarly, asking three-to six-year-olds to use parts of the brain that are still underdeveloped is inappropriate and dangerous. Too much sitting down to formal activities is not good for any children, but it is especially harmful to the future physical health and well-being of three-to seven-year-olds.'
Sue Palmer, literacy expert and organiser of the campaigning group, Time to Teach, argues, 'We need to get away from this desperate obsession the Government has with statistics as opposed to children. It is pushing all the way down into nursery departments. We have very good guidance for the foundation years, but it is constantly muddied and confused by all the kerfuffle over targets.
'I do talks for early years teachers explaining about speaking and listening skills, but they say they don't feel justified in spending time on speaking and listening as they are not valued by the parents.'
Parents wanting the best for their children can add to the pressure. The head teacher of Landywood School in Staffordshire, Alan Stockley, who chairs the NAHT Primary Committee, says he and his staff try to play down SATs. 'It is not the teachers here putting on the pressure. It is part of life now. You go into WH Smith and instead of seeing interesting books for the children to read, there are manuals for the parents on how to get their children through the next SATs test.'
Sue Albutt, assistant head teacher at Landywood, where she works as early years and Key Stage 1 co-ordinator, wants to protect the foundation curriculum. She says, 'The Foundation Stage is wonderful. There are things like art, music and PE that develop the whole child and not just the academic side. Ofsted says it is looking for wonder and awe and things that promote them. But that is all just pushed aside by SATs, because children have to understand this or remember that.
'I am fighting very hard to resist the downward pressure from SATs, but as colleagues we want to support each other. Year One staff see the Year Two teachers and think if we could get the children to this level it might make their job a little easier. The reception teachers see what is happening in Year One and think they should push on.'
All this is adding undue stress on practitioners, thinks freelance family support worker and early years consultant Dr Jacqui Cousins. 'There is a real dilemma for early years practitioners resulting in stress and anxiety,' she says. 'When a person really knows, feels and sees the harm they are doing to a little child, they are faced with such a dilemma that it can lead to a nervous breakdown. There are a lot of reception teachers who are so stressed they are packing up and leaving the profession.'
TACTYC's president, Professor Colin Richards of St Martin's College, Cumbria, wants to enlist the support of Parent and Teacher Associations in the campaign against SATs. 'I am also looking at how we can get the seven-year-olds to tell the Government what they think of the tests,' he adds.
Margaret Edgington concludes, 'The time has come for the unions, the teachers and practitioners to band together. There is a consensus. Maybe what people have to do is refuse to do the SATs test next year.' NW Like other campaigners she worries about the impact of hot-housing children. 'Research in America shows if you over formalise the curriculum in the early years you end up with delinquency later on. I am sure that is why we are seeing these problems now of rising exclusion rates, rising truancy rates and increased anti social behaviour.'
SATs AT SEVEN
Unlike the tests on Study and Attainment Targets for 11-and 14-year-olds, which are timetabled to a particular week in May, SATs at seven run throughout the month with tests spread over several days. They cover reading and writing, including handwriting and spelling, and maths, and altogether last less than three hours. Teacher assessment is also used for English, maths and science.
At the age of seven most children are expected to achieve level 2B. The levels are graded at 1 to 4 or below expectations, at level expected, beyond expectations and exceptional. Critics say Government plans to introduce starred levels will add to the pressures.
