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Anger as schools are told to drill pupils for SATs
Tim Ross, Education Correspondent15.10.08
CHILDREN face mounting pressure to pass their primary school Sats after the Government told teachers to drill pupils for exams.
Nine- and 10-year-olds should be introduced to exam courses in maths and English to boost results, a year before they take their tests, according to official guidance.
Teachers should give pupils "regular practice" in how to answer questions, focusing "especially" on children at the borderline between grades, the advice says.
Critics condemned Schools Secretary Ed Balls for publishing a "toolkit for teaching to the test" that will deny children a rounded education.
The Minister has scrapped Sats for 14-year-olds but said tests at age 11 would stay.
Mr Balls said it was important for pupils to be prepared to take their Sats but stressed he did not condone "teaching to the test".
A spokeswoman for the Schools Department said the guidance was intended to help schools make sure "all children achieve their potential".
The document tells headteachers to allocate "as much teaching assistant support as possible" to children in the run-up to the tests in May. It adds: "We know this makes a real difference for children working at level borderlines." The guidance says that in maths, children should have "regular practice in answering five-, 10- and 15-second mental questions".
In English, pupils must have "experience" of what an exam "feels like".
Experts said that the focus on children at grade borderlines was intended to meet government targets and boost league table scores.
But pupils who struggle to keep up and those who are highly academic will receive less attention.
Professor Alan Smithers, from the University of Buckingham, said: "Rather than seeking to improve all young children, they are saying 'Direct your attention here because it will maximise scores and provide the best picture in reporting.
"The emphasis on the test scores is destroying the educational experience of the children."
The National Union of Teachers called on Mr Balls to withdraw the guidance.
NUT acting general secretary Christine Blower said: "This toolkit is absolutely unacceptable. Teaching to the test massively narrows the curriculum and puts enormous pressure on individual children."
Reader views (3)
By all means don't teach them, just make sure they can pass set exam formats.
Balls by name ...
- Frank, Home Counties, England
Schools have been doing this for years to boost their own placing on the league tables. My wife is a teaching assistant and she is instructed to give a large hint to any pupil to re-visit a question, which they have plainly got wrong. She cannot tell them they have got it wrong but they would have to be pretty stupid not to get the hint. Couple this with the multi-tiered "O" level (or whatever they are called this year) and anybody can see the exam regime is even a joke.
After reading around two hundred CVs for people who wanted a job as my assistant, I reckon many degrees are not worth the papaer they are written on.
- Mark, South-East London
On the Daily Politics a Govt Minister told us that Gordon had promised to get rid of Tory Boom and Bust but this did not mean that Gordon would not have his own Boom and Bust. Now Balls produces a "toolkit" for coaching for Sats whilst telling us he is against coaching for tests. Balls concentration on getting borderline cases up a grade explains exactly why so many children leave Primary School without the basics - its Labour Policy!
- Dave, London
