To the Editor
I am writing to support the parents who are removing their children from school today in order to boycott the SATs testing in primary schools amid increasing concerns about the direction education is taking in this country.
I have been increasingly alarmed by changing educational policies recently, not only the increased emphasis on testing children but also the Government’s push towards forcing schools to become academies, which is basically a push towards privatising schools.
Locally the ‘innovative’ £38 million pound Bexhill High Academy took only a few months to be placed in special measures. Originally a community school administered by East Sussex County Council it became an academy in 2012. Prospect Academy Trust who ran the school has now folded, and it is now part of the Attwood Academies Trust. The new sponsor is Tom Attwood, a Kent businessman who previously ran The Kemnal Academies Trust which in 2013 was sent warning letters by the Department for Education about ‘unacceptably low standards of performance’.
Do we really want businesses running our schools? Head teachers clearly don’t, as they are threatening strike action. Much like the junior doctors they are in a much better position to know what will and won’t work and yet the Government are refusing to listen.
My concern with SATs is not with the tests themselves, it is how they are presented to children. If children just sat down one day in class and completed them as best they could they would neither know nor care about their significance and would be caused no distress by them whatsoever. The results would then be a true reflection of what children know.
Unfortunately I know from experience that in order for the schools to get the best results (and let’s not forget the idea of the SATs is to test teaching standards) children are subjected to weeks of practice, extra tuition and are put under a lot of pressure to perform well. Teachers teach to the tests, the importance of the tests is drummed into children causing them a great deal of stress and in my opinion something of the true nature of education is lost.
It is sad to think that the views of public sector workers as important as doctors and teachers are being ignored by Government and that strikes and boycotts are the only course of action left, but if it is the only way forward then so be it.
Good luck to the boycotting parents today who will be teaching their children a very important lesson. The government work for us, and they need to listen to us.
Helen Burton
