Head teachers should stop asking pupils if they ‘feel OK’ about tests because it might make them feel stressed, says schools watchdog
- Amanda Spielman said ‘‘clapping children on the shoulder’ piles on the pressure
- Chief inspector of schools said heads should avoid the issues of sitting exams
- Mrs Spielman blamed the problem of ‘young children’s anxiety’ on schools
Head teachers should stop asking pupils if they ‘feel OK’ about primary school SATs because it might encourage anxiety, according to the ofsted.
Amanda Spielman said even positive encouragement such as ‘clapping children on the shoulder’ could pile on the pressure.
The chief inspector of schools said heads should avoid the issue completely so that their pupils do not realised they are being tested.
Amanda Spielman said even positive encouragement such as ‘clapping children on the shoulder’ could pile on the pressure
Half a million 11-year-olds sit their SATs this week but Jeremy Corbyn is vowing to abolish the tests if Labour wins power. Backed by Left-wing unions, he said SATs were ‘giving young children nightmares’.
Rebuffing this claim, Mrs Spielman blamed the problem on schools.
‘Good primary schools manage to run key stage tests often with children not even knowing that they’re being tested,’ she said. ‘Seven-year-olds think “Oh we did a maths booklet today, great”.
‘I was in a primary school not long ago where I saw the head was going around clapping the year sixes on the shoulder saying “So are you feeling OK about the test, is everything going well for you?”
Half a million 11-year-olds sit their SATs this week but Jeremy Corbyn is vowing to abolish the tests if Labour wins power
‘And I thought actually maybe that is well-meaning, but maybe that’s actually subliminally encouraging children to feel anxious. There is something really important about how we do these things.
‘The mere act of talking about something – somebody other than a classroom teacher – might just help to ratchet things up that bit.’
Mrs Spielman said heads should take a different line with GCSEs, when the results really do matter.
Many parents do not realise the SATs are not an official qualification and are used to judge the performance of the school – not its children
Over the past two years, parents and teachers have complained children have been left in tears after taking the new, tougher, SATs.
Under reforms introduced by Michael Gove, the curriculum has been made more rigorous in an effort to raise levels of literacy and numeracy. The tests are taken in reading, writing, maths, grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Many parents do not realise the SATs are not an official qualification and are used to judge the performance of the school – not its children.
The data is used to draw up official league tables and lets the Government know where teaching is substandard.