Now heads call in pupils for SATs revision over holidays

HUNDREDS of head teachers are calling 11-year- olds into school during the Easter holidays to revise for the SATs, union leaders revealed yesterday.

The NASUWT said the ‘growing trend’ over the past five years reflected the desperation of schools for good results to boost their league table positions.

It claimed the practice could be harming children’s ‘mental health’ as they should be playing with family and friends during their time off.

Schools across the country have boasted on Twitter about their Easter revision classes over the past two weeks, with one even rewarding pupils with McDonald’s Happy Meals. Children are due to sit the tests next month in maths, reading, writing grammar, spelling and punctuation.

The results are used by the Government to judge how well a school is doing, and to compile league tables for parents.

The NASUWT represents 300,000 school staff – mostly ordinary classroom teachers.

Last week, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced Labour would scrap SATs over claims they are ‘damaging’ to children and create too much work for teachers.

Darren Northcott, a national officer at the NASUWT, said the trend for Easter revision sessions was ‘relatively recent’ and had become ‘increasingly prevalent over the last five years’. Speaking at the union’s annual conference in Belfast, he claimed that ‘several hundred schools’ had ‘almost certainly’ adopted it.

While the lessons are voluntary, schools make clear to parents that children are expected to attend for their own sake.

Mr Northcott said: ‘If children have been set homework and it is productive, they should be doing that but they should also be doing engaging things with their own friends and spending time with their families – a critical part of a healthy childhood.’

He added it was hard to see what is driving the trend, but heads may be worrying more about performance since the new more challenging curriculum was introduced in 2016.

In addition, schools want to boost results and rise up league tables. ‘It’s the start of a trend,’ Mr Northcott said. ‘Schools are in a market to attract pupils.’

Schools with consistently bad results can face intervention from Whitehall and a leadership overhaul.

‘ We have a high- stakes accountability system,’ he said. ‘The issue is the accountability regime. It’s not the tests themselves, it is the way they are used.’

The NASUWT said it would take action and ‘challenge’ any school forcing teachers to come in against their will to teach unpaid during Easter.

General secretary Chris Keates said: ‘The growing trend of Easter SATs classes in primary schools is a worrying reflection of the highstakes accountability regime.

‘This week at least six primary schools revealed on Twitter they are running Easter revision sessions.

Browney Academy in County Durham even tweeted a photograph of a class of children holding Happy Meals, with the caption: ‘Well done to our superstars in Year 6 who attended our Easter revision session yesterday. The McDonald’s was well deserved!’

Education Secretary Damian Hinds said exam stress at primary school was not inevitable.

‘In many schools there isn’t any,’ he added. ‘All over the world, schools guide children through tests without them feeling pressured. These are tests of our education system, not our children.’

Labour education spokesman Angela Rayner said: ‘Our pupils are the most tested in the world, but there is no evidence that the current highstakes testing regime improves teaching and learning.

‘Replacing the current system will reduce the burden of testing on children and teachers, encourage a broad curriculum and separate assessment of schools from assessment of children.’

‘Most tested in the world’