3Rstest trouble brewing

Teachers look set to consider a boycott of standardised assessments of pupils at a conference in Perth in two months’ time.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) - Scotland’s largest teaching union - is to debate whether its members should be balloted on withholding the results of the tests at its AGM in June.

Under a plan put forward by the Scottish Government, pupils in primary one, four and seven, as well as in third year at secondary school, will be assessed on their reading, writing and mathematical skills from August.

But the EIS conference is due to consider a motion that says: “That this AGM resolve that, if the Scottish Government implements national standardised testing which the EIS determines as detrimental to learning and teaching in schools, all members in primary and secondary schools will be balloted on a boycott of the administration and reporting of the test results.”

An EIS spokesperson said: “The authors of this particular motion are clearly reflecting a commonlyheld concern within the teaching profession about the potential impact of standardised testing on wider learning and teaching.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The new standardised assessments will simply replace the existing assessments already used in most schools in Scotland.

“They will not increase workload for teachers or children but they will help check progress in literacy and reading, automatically generating information for teachers on where a pupil is doing well and where further support may be required.”