Rachel’s advice to children was in a class of its own

Last week the Lancashire head teacher put Barrowford Primary on the map by sending 11-year-old pupils a thoughtful letter along with their “end of Key Stage Two” test results.

Barrowford’s headie pointed out examiners: “do not know each of you... the way your teachers do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way your families do.

“They don’t know you can be trustworthy, kind or thoughtful, and try, every day, to be your very best.

“Enjoy your results but remember, there are many ways of being smart”.

Wow. I’ll bet her pupils felt like winners without even clocking the test results. And that was the whole point.

Barrowford Primary tries to praise and encourage rather than scold and judge.

Its motto is “Learn to love, love to learn” and the school aims to produce “rounded and grounded” pupils who can try to learn in any circumstances.

A recent experiment showed children labelled too thick to speak English properly learnt Mandarin Chinese quite easily – the secret? An absence of stigmatising expectations and a positive attitude from teachers.

Anyway, the encouraging Barrowford letter trended on Twitter with many folk suggesting Ms Tomlinson should replace ousted Education Secretary for England, Michael Gove. Chance would be a fine thing.

But no one seemed concerned that thousands of English kids still face the prospect of being labelled failures because of these “Key Stage Two” test results. What are they all about?

After an hour online – wading through “test frameworks, cognitive domains and level reporting strategies” – I am hardly any the wiser.

But it seems most English children aged 11 have teacher assessments and National Curriculum tests in english, science and maths ( SATS tests) marked by external examiners.

The results are posted on performance league tables and,after that the wee lambs have teacher assessments every year until they take GCSEs at 14 or 15.

Gove insisted this plethora of tests would help England claw its way back up the international league tables.

It hasn’t. English pupils currently perform less well than Scotland in maths and english and the whole UK lies outside the international top 20. Actually though, the best countries run education more l i ke Barrowford Primary than Eton.

In Finland – which regularly tops achievement charts – endless external testing is unknown, primary teachers have Masters degrees, schools are small and teachers are responsive.

By contrast, according to Pasi Sahlberg, an expert on Finnish education – the English system is “testing children to destruction.”

Perhaps that’s why there has been such a huge, emotional response south of the border to that tender, humane and understanding teachers’ letter.

It’s a challenge to the prevailing Conservative belief that judging, grading, dividing, testing, monitoring and examining children produces results, confidence and active citizens. It doesn’t.

We’re on a very different track north of the border thanks to the Curriculum for Excellence which has no externally- marked exams until the age of 16.

Scots now aim to develop deeper learning – with pupils truly understanding subjects rather than just regurgitating facts and figures. But TV programmes like Educating Yorkshire show education can go a step further.

Teachers can help children tackle all kinds of obstacles – from speech impediments to shyness, poverty and violent homes – as long as they have courage, trust and time away from endless marking, tests and assessments.

Exams still matter at Barrowford but they aren’t everything – in school or life.

The highly unpopular former Education Secretary, and his successor, Nicky Morgan, should take note.