Primary school teachers ‘fuelling fear of Sats’

PRIMARY pupils have no problem with testing if anxiety is not “manufactured” by teachers and parents, Ofsted’s chief inspector has said.

As pupils begin sitting Sats and GCSES this week, Amanda Spielman said teachers were “encouraging children to feel anxious”, adding that exams are only a source of concern when “people make it so”.

Jeremy Corbyn said last month that if Labour win power, he would scrap Sats. He added that primary schoolchildren should not have to go through “extreme pressure testing”.

Ms Spielman said: “Testing happens in every system throughout the world. It only becomes a big deal for children if people make it so for them.”

She said it was important to strike a balance between “the value of [tests] actually helping teachers and children and the downsides of manufacturing anxiety about them beyond that little bit of adrenalin”.

Ms Spielman added: “Good primary schools manage to run key stage tests often with children not even knowing that they’re being tested. I was in a primary school not very long ago, I saw something that did concern me.

“The head was going around patting Year 6s on the shoulder saying, ‘Are you feeling OK about the tests, is everything going well for you?’ I thought: that’s actually subliminally encouraging children to feel anxious.

“Everybody should think about their behaviour because the mere act of talking about something might just help to ratchet things up.”

Ms Spielman spoke out as Ofsted published its new regime for inspecting schools, which places an emphasis on how well institutions seek to build resilience in young people.

It aims to crack down on schools that “game” the system by using “off-rolling” – excluding disruptive pupils to improve results.

Commenting on plans to better track the practice, Mathew Purves, Ofsted’s deputy director of schools, said: “Data might tell us there have been unusual movements of pupils, but that doesn’t tell us if off-rolling has taken place.

“It’s a detailed set of forensic inspection conversations and it’s about getting to the heart of these decisions that have been made for these pupils.

“Were they made in their interest, or were they made in the school interest, or in the interest of some kind of performance table?”

First revealed in draft form in January, the new inspection framework will see Ofsted mark institutions on how much they help children “develop their character”, which includes their resilience, confidence and independence.

A standalone category for “personal development” has been added for the first time, as a way to encourage schools to prioritise extra-curricular activities. The revised guidelines also aim to make sure schools employ a culture of dealing with bullying rather than “sweeping it under the carpet”.

Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary, said yesterday: “Ofsted’s role in the education system is of vital importance.

“The introduction of this new framework is a major step in supporting our shared drive to raise standards across the school system so that every child can have access to a world-class education.”