The assessment system is broken: together, we can put it right

1. The assessment system is broken: together, we can put it right

2. SATS – their time is up • There is a widespread view amongst teachers, parents, politicians and education experts that the current assessment system is damaging education. • Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party are all united in their opposition to SATS, high stakes testing and league tables. • In their recent speeches to the NEU’s Annual Conference, both Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Layla Moran committed to abolishing SATs and Baseline testing

4. The case against SATS • High-stakes nature of the tests causes stress for pupils and staff. • Narrowing of the curriculum resulting from pressure to teach to the test • Labels pupils as failures if they do not meet arbitrary standards. • Tests are about comparing schools, not assessing pupil learning

5. What do teachers think? In a 2017 survey: • 84% of teachers said that the high-stakes system had a particularly negative impact on children with SEND. • 58% said there was a particular impact on children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) • 33% said that children eligible for free school meals, a benchmark for disadvantage, were particularly adversely-affected

6. What do teachers say? “We've had children crying, making themselves ill and refusing to come to school - even labelling themselves failures - because of these tests.” “I have seen many pupils in year 2 crying and anxious during the tests and making comments like ‘I can't read’ and ‘I'm stupid’” “The curriculum is narrow,” wrote one teacher, “dominated by English and maths, and with other topics normally off timetable, especially from Christmas onwards.”

7. What do parents think? • The parents’ organisation, Let our Kids be Kidsrecently wrote to Damian Hinds spelling out their opposition to SATs. They also support parents to withdraw their children from SATs. • Let Our Kids be Kids is part of a wider coalition, More Than a Score (MTAS), of which NEU is also a member. • MTAS has prepared a parents’ toolkit to help parents and community groups campaign against high stakes testing. 

8. What does the research say? • A major study published this month, using data from the National Pupil Data Base, concluded that formal exams are no better at predicting pupil educational success. Teacher assessment predicted accurately 90% of the grades achieved by pupils at GCSE and A level. • Dr MargeritaMalancui, co leader of the research, commented: ‘Trusting teachers to implement the curriculum and monitor progress could benefit the wellbeing of pupils and teachers and help to bring joy back into the classroom.’

9. Does the NEU believe in schools being accountable? • Yes, of course. • No-one is suggesting that teachers stop assessing pupils. • But we must stop assessing them in ways that do not support their learning. • NEU believe that teachers can and should use their professional expertise and judgement to assess children’s learning. • There are lots of examples where that is done very successfully without the need for high stakes testing ...

10. What do other countries do? In Finland, schools manage very well without external tests: they conduct self-evaluations as part of their responsibilities. Beyond Finland, there is a wealth of work that sets out alternatives to SATs (MTAS 2018). It focuses on 3 kinds of assessment: • formative assessment by teachers, across a broad range of learning. • occasional use at the teachers’ discretion of summative tests taken from a national text bank, to confirm teachers’ judgments • sampling – as with the international PISA tests a small proportion of learners would be tested, to evaluate trends in the school system as a whole.

11. Will abolishing SATS lead to higher workload and a worse quality of work? The NEU isn’t just calling for an end to SATs and other testing but a complete overhaul of the testing regime, including the abolition of league tables and a complete reform of school inspection to be supportive rather than punitive. The NEU is working to develop alternatives to SATs that: • put teachers’ capacity for confident and trustworthy professional judgment at the core of school assessment cultures • promote good work, rather than pointless additional workload.

12. The ballot timetable • Ballot will run from 4 June to 2 July. • Ballot will be run internally, with emails sent via Action Network and the ballot through Survey Monkey. • Members with a valid email address will receive an email with a link and a unique voter ID. • Members without a valid email address will receive a letter in the post with a link and a unique voter ID. • Members will receive a helpline number they can call if they have queries about their ballot

13. We need school reps to: • Pin up the campaign poster, distribute postcards and stickers to colleagues at their school • Remind members to check and update their member details via My NEU, especially their email address • Organise a member meeting and/or speak to members about the ballot, urging them to vote YES to both questions • When the ballot opens, check that members have received the ballot email – and to look in their spam/junk folders if they haven’t seen it • Talk to their head about the issues with primary assessment