SATs at seven, a test too far!

At my son's school they call them quizzes and this week he and his seven-year-old peers are in full quizzing mode. They're facing comprehension quizzes, literacy quizzes and maths quizzes, without a sing off, music round or meat raffle in sight. This isn't quizzing in the pub sense of the word, this is SATs time; the state testing of seven-year-olds.

Giving exams to children for whom tying shoelaces is still a struggle seems a bit too Big Brother for my liking. I understand the arguements for assessing national averages and the performance of primary schools, but what are the children getting out of this, and the teachers for that matter? Neither party wants to be doing SATs at such a young age. The kids would rather be learning in a structured environment, independently, in a group with their friends or one-on-one with the teacher or LSA. The teachers, meanwhile, don't need the added stress of getting their charges through tests - with results that will reflect well on them - when the challenge of dealing with 30 seven-year-olds is sufficient in itself to drive most to the nearest bottle of gin.

Why are we testing seven-year-olds?

We are also not a United Kingdom when it comes to SATs tests and England in fact stands alone as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland don't have them. A quick Google search into the subject also worryingly brought up the following:

1. SATs do not improve pupils' learning or raise standards (Cambridge Primary Review)
2. SATs can have a negative impact on children's learning (Evidence for Policy and Practice Information Centre)
3. SATs can have a negative impact on children's wellbeing (Evidence for Policy and Practice Information Centre)
4. SATs reduce pupil's access to a broad and balanced curriculum (OFSTED)
5. SATs are not a reliable way of measuring achievement (King's College, London)

So if all this is the case, if a survey of 10,000 parents in 2009 found that 85% disagreed with them and if over 4,000 schools boycotted them in 2010, why are SATs still taking place across England?

I fear that it's because we've become too hooked on National School League Tables to determine where we send our children to school and where we live. Parents choosing homes will scour the tables to compare schools' scores, while Estate Agents will do likewise in order to increase the asking price for homes that fall within the catchment areas of the high scorers. This, in turn, means that only families who can afford these homes can move into them, bringing their privileged children with them, who will of course go on to help the schools to maintain or improve their scores.

Is this right? Is it fair? Of course it's not.

And what about the seven-year-olds in all this, what happened to school being a place of both learning and fun? These precious primary years should be free of the pressure of testing, which will come all too quickly when the children move on to secondary school. Primary schools should be the places at which our children learn to love learning, where the teachers can nurture their potential and prepare them for the more academic learning that will follow in the years ahead. How can we expect children to develop a passion for story writing, science, drama, art, music or sport if they are not given a fair chance to experience these in a curriculum that is weighted towards those areas that are tested at seven?

I'd love to know whether children in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are doing better or worse as a result of not taking SATs at seven, although I think I know the answer to that one already. At least, if we are going to quiz our kids, we could be upskilling them now on the vital trivia knowledge they're going to need when they get to the age when they can join us in the Fox and Hounds on a Thursday evening.