‘Damaging to Primary Education’ NEU Slams SATs Testing for Year 2 and Year 6 Children

SATs Damage Primary School Education:

If you have a child in year 2 or year 6, you will be more than aware that we are officially in SATs Season. You might be lucky enough to have a child whose school breezes through them without turning them into an end-of-days scenario, but according to a joint survey by the National Education Union (NEU) and TES, it’s definitely a minority.

In their survey of 500 teachers and headteachers in England, SATs were found to be taken very seriously indeed. A 30 per cent of teachers and heads said their school expects young children aged six and seven to do SATs revision at home for the year 2 tests. This jumped to a whopping 82 per cent for those children aged 10 and 11 taking the year 6 versions.

Delving deeper into the world of education crazy, 8 per cent ran revision classes after school and 62 per cent held mock tests for year 2 children.

For year 6 children, 56 per cent offered after school sessions and 29 per cent held lunchtime revision classes.

“It feels like so much time is spent on preparation for SATS tests, and then teacher assessment on top of this takes too much teaching time that the children are entitled too,” a Year 2 teacher from Norfolk said. “A broad a varied curriculum? Where? How is this even possible?”

Despite the SATs push in schools, 64 per cent of teachers in year 2 believed the tests to be ‘detrimental’ to teaching a broad curriculum, a belief also held by 82 per cent of those teaching year 6.

A Bristol key stage 1 teacher said: “All other subjects are given, at best, two hours a week, in order to practise SATs and prepare them to pass the test. Our children know little of the wider curriculum as it is not tested.”

The tests are also impacting on the mental health of the children, with some teachers reporting that children in both years are reduced to tears by the pressure. A staggering 54 per cent of teaching staff say that year 2 children are suffering from mental health difficulties directly related to taking SATS, a figure that soars to a whopping 83 per cent in year 6.

And it’s not just the children feeling the SATs sadness. An 89 per cent of Year 6 teachers find the relentlessness was detrimental to their own mental health, with numbers only dropping slightly to a high 74 per cent of year 2 teachers.

Joint general secretary of the NEU, Dr Mary Bousted said: “SATs, whether at Year 2 or Year 6, are damaging to primary education. The Government relentlessly tests children from the age of six, and they are told they are failures if they do not meet required standards. This can impact on their self-esteem, which can carry on throughout their schooling and determine the direction of their adult lives.

“We believe there are better ways of assessing children, and better ways of ensuring school accountability. We will continue to campaign with parents and other educational organisations against the accountability and assessment pressures that lead to the labelling of children.”

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