Most of us go to the dentist and the optician to have
our teeth and eyes checked on a regular basis. When
we turn 40 we can have our health checked by the GP.
If something matters, you check that it’s all ok.
Very few things matter as much as ensuring our
children can read, write and add up. That is why all
over the world, from France to Finland and America to
Australia children’s learning is assessed. From
Berlin to Bordeaux, Boston to Brisbane, children sit
assessment tests. 28 out of 35 countries in the OECD
assess primary school pupils through national,
standardised tests. In Australia, tests take place in
years 3, 5, 7 and 9. In most US States, they take
place annually. There are very few things that are
agreed the world over about education – the need to
assess primary school attainment is one of them.
The tests themselves vary but the principle remains
constant. These tests do not exist to check up on our
children. Our national curriculum tests (often called
SATs) exist to check up on the system – and those who
oversee it on your behalf. There are few duties on me
that are more serious than ensuring that children are
literate and numerate by the time they leave primary
school. It is absolutely right that you should know
whether we are succeeding in this duty or not.
This is why it worries me deeply when I hear calls
for primary school tests to be scrapped. Imagine if
the government announced that it was going to ban
dental checks or stop opticians checking our
eyesight. People would be rightly horrified. Stopping
testing means not checking whether something is ok or
not. In the world of primary school education, that
means stopping checking whether our children can
read, write and add up.
This doesn’t mean that we should accept exam stress
at primary school. The truth is that in many schools,
there isn’t any. All over the world, schools guide
children through tests without them feeling
pressured. This is how it should be. For these tests
are tests of our education system, not our children.
They test whether we – the adults - are discharging
our duty to the children of our country.
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – no-one
has ever been asked for their SATs results when they
go to a job interview. Why? Because they are not
public exams. Unlike GCSEs or A-levels, I am yet to
meet someone with a SATs result on their CV.
Those of you younger than 35 know this through
experience, for our primary schools have been
carrying out national curriculum tests for almost 30
years now. I refuse to countenance returning to a
world where Government had no effective way of
knowing how well our children were being taught,
disproportionately to the detriment of those from the
most disadvantaged backgrounds.
The importance of testing has been one of the main
things Labour and Conservative governments have
agreed on in education policy over the past quarter
of a century. This consensus has allowed us to
measure progress in discharging our duty to our
children. As a result we can tell which areas of the
country and which schools need more support and which
should share their expertise with the rest. It allows
us all to see the improvement over the last few years
in children’s reading as well as the declining gap
between disadvantaged students and their better off
peers. Turning our back on testing would put this
progress, and children’s future, at risk.
