New government to face Sats boycott after teacher vote (UK)

Head teachers face legal action after voting to boycott national tests for a quarter of a million 11-year-olds, the Government warned last night.

Primary heads will refuse to administer English and maths papers, scheduled for the second week of May, if their unions act on the results of yesterday’s ballot.

The decision puts them on a collision course with the Government, which said that heads have a statutory duty to deliver the tests, formerly known as SATs. They warned that they would investigate legal options.

Teachers argue that the national curriculum tests put too much pressure on pupils in the final year of primary school and encourage teaching to the test. The results are used to compile national league tables. Ministers claim that they are a valuable tool for parents and help to keep schools accountable.

The campaign against SAT’s has been spearheaded by the NUT and NAHT but there has also been vocal support from leading children’s writers such as Michael Rosen and Philip Pullman and parents’ organisations. Margaret Morrissey of parents’ group Parents Aloud told the Guardian newspaper that she hoped the politicians would now listen to parents and teachers.

In a letter to the Guardian Michael Rosen said: “Sats have turned the primary curriculum into a desert of work sheets, short extracts and a fear of failure.” And he gave the following example: “In the very first key stage 2 Sats paper, the candidates were asked to say what was in a matchbox in a story by Jan Mark. The only correct answer was ‘nothing’, and yet the fun of the story is that the children ‘fill’ the matchbox with their fantasies and ideas. ‘The children’s imagination’ would have been a wrong answer. Sats have turned many classrooms into places where children’s imagination is always the wrong answer.”