Are tests for school starters so bad?
My daughter recently came home from her second term in Reception with sheets of words we are supposed to practice with her over the Easter holidays. She is enjoying learning and is starting to read and write sentences, but she has only just turned five. Must our time with her be spent doing homework already?
Now the Government has unveiled plans for baseline testing of four-year-olds when they start school. This has been described by some as verging on “immoral”. But despite my dislike of homework, I’m not as bothered about tests, even if the only thing the kids taking them can recognise is the characters in Peppa Pig.
The whole thing will only take around 20 minutes, the aim being to assess children’s communication, language, literacy and mathematics skills.
It will replace the statutory tests sat by seven-year-olds at the end of Year 2, actually reducing high-intensity testing in primary schools.
Isn’t life one big test anyway? And how else are teachers – and children for that matter – supposed to learn about progress? Test them all you want at four, just don’t send them home with revision.