Focus on exams hurts children’s education

THE ever-impressive Chief Inspector of Schools in England, Amanda Spielman, is on a crusade to outlaw exam factory schools that narrowly “teach to the test” and are guilty of “gaming the system”, that do not offer a wider, richer education including art, music, sport and drama.

She believes that children are being betrayed by such schools. She claims the current focus on exams puts the interest of schools ahead of the interests of the children.

Ms Spielman has been alarmed by secondary schools that set GCSE targets for pupils at the age of 11, along with those schools that start teaching GCSE courses three years before the exams. This means sacrificing wider learning.

She also criticised the relentless drive on tracking pupils which adds to the teacher’s workload, adversely affecting their teaching performance.

This is driving teachers out of the profession – along with lessons that are all about exams, where teaching the mark schemes has a bigger place than teaching the subject.

Because schools are judged on GSCE grades, some are encouraging their pupils to retake exams continually throughout their last two and sometimes three years, where actual education and learning has been virtually suspended in pursuit of the best “outcomes” for the school.

The head of Ofsted said that we should be ashamed for letting such practices persist for so long, and there are plans in England to downgrade exam results as a measure of school quality as she moves to stamp out the culture of cramming children for tests.

Are you paying attention at the back, Kirsty William, Estyn and the Welsh Government? Dennis Coughlin

Llandaff