Playing politics on school tests

Teaching unions met to debate Sats amid a backdrop of deep uncertainty. Tight opinion polls mean it is still hard to predict who will be in Downing Street on May 7 while Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, even faces the challenge of the Conservatives' decapitation strategy in his constituency, the new seat of Morley and Outwood. All the main parties have shown a willingness to reform national curriculum tests but not to spell out the details of how this can be achieved.

What is clear, however, is that a boycott of Sats is not the answer. Teaching unions are right to have concerns about the way 11-year-olds are tested and, more generally, the frequency with which children are examined, but this form of industrial action will do little for pupils or schools.

The policy on testing has to be set by the elected Government rather than by one particular interest group – however compelling its complaints may seem. The boycott of Sats, which are due to be taken by 600,000 children in the week beginning May 10 and just days after the General Election, allows virtually no time at all for a new Government to tackle the problems. It looks like an attention-grabbing ploy rather than an attempt to solve the problem of over-testing and poor standards of marking. Parents, meanwhile, can justly protest that they have had no say.

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Teachers' frustration stems from the growth of a testing regime that has begun to feel like a treadmill for children. This creates the obvious danger that schools teach for the tests, rather than for the general education of pupils.

Whoever is controlling education policy at the end of this week must make it a priority to reform the system and to create an environment in which parents can gain a clear picture of their children's standards, and those of their school, without pupils and teachers facing incessant pressure and interference. A boycott may seem attractive at the start but by the time it has wreaked chaos and inequality, the unions won't look so clever.