Some testing times lie ahead for our little one
As this is my first column of 2019 I would like to wish you a Happy New Year – it might be just me, but Christmas seems like a distant memory!
Prior to the Christmas period was a busy time in the council.
There was our final full council meeting where the Conservative group called for officers to be instructed to prepare a report on the authority’s powers to stop the tests in local schools.
In September the Scottish Parliament voted that the tests should be halted.
Responding to widespread concerns, the Tories’ call to end the tests was backed by Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green MSPs – as all opposition parties united to overrule the nationalist government.
Parents, teachers and charities have all voiced concerns about standardised assessments involving pupils in their very first year of school and as such our group decided it was something that they wanted to tackle at a council level.
Despite winning the support of Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors, the move was blocked by the SNP administration and its allies in the independent group.
Councillor Richard Nelson, the Conservative group’s business manager, said: “There is clear opposition to the current approach from educators across Scotland.
“Many teachers have expressed huge concerns about testing this age group – Deputy First Minister and Education Secretary John Swinney acknowledged that in the parliamentary debate in September.
“No one could be comfortable hearing stories of four and five year olds left in tears by standardised questions they couldn’t understand.
“Concerns have also been raised about the impact on teaching time, with reports of teachers losing up to 50 classroom hours to facilitate the tests.
“It is reasonable to question whether any information gained from carrying them out would be worth such a significant loss of teaching time.”
It’s disappointing that South Lanarkshire’s SNP administration refused to scrap controversial primary one tests.
Personally having a three year old going to school soon, this has been something that has been very important to me, because I see how young she is and want her to have the childhood I had, learning to make friends and play in her first year at school which is daunting enough, without knowing that there are going to be tests and then labels put on your child in their earliest years.
I really struggle to understand the necessity of this.