Schools: time to take action on SATS!

Submitted by Matthew on 5 March, 2010 - 2:45 Author: Pat Murphy, NUT Executive (personal capacity)

It’s been a long time coming but the National Union of Teachers and the union that represents most primary Heads, the NAHT, have finally agreed to hold a joint ballot to boycott this year’s SATs tests in primary schools in England.

The ballot will open on 15 March and close on 16 April with the national executives of both unions meeting soon after to decide whether they have a mandate to proceed. The ballot timetable, the question and the constituency being balloted will be identical for both unions.

Members of what in schools is known as the leadership group (Heads, Deputy Heads and Assistant Heads) will be asked if they are prepared to take action short of strike action “to frustrate the administration of national curriculum tests in English and Maths at Key Stage 2 in 2010”. The action will involve a refusals to follow the test opening and administrative procedures (open the envelopes with papers), to carry out the tests and to ensure that all eligible and able pupils take the tests.

Together the NUT and NAHT represent the overwhelming majority of Heads and other leaders in primary schools. If any significant number of them can ensure that tests are not carried out in their schools there will be no chance that any meaningful league tables can be constructed for this year’s results.

The aim of both unions is to end national compulsory testing and league tables for ever.

The campaign took off this year because SATs have already been abolished already in high schools and don’t exist in any other part of the UK. The unions argue that their members’ jobs, pay and conditions of work are increasingly determined by the outcome of SATs and the position of their schools in league tables and this is what creates the dispute.

There is also agreement across both unions that the testing and league table regime massively distorts education and enforces a narrow and restrictive curriculum on very young children.

If we can end this regime it will provoke huge cheers from parents, teachers and children alike. It will also help undermine the internal market in schools introduced by the Thatcher government in 1988 and continued by New Labour since 1997 as this relies on league tables to force schools into competition with each other.

The boycott is a long way from creating a collaborative and child-centred culture of education, but it would be a great start.

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