This week, children the length and breadth of England have taken their SATs - the national tests in English and Maths for eleven year olds (and those who are not quite eleven).
For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know: these tests have all the feel of a GCSE or A' Level exam. Children are isolated at a desk, passers-by are banned, the room is silent, test papers are distributed and must not be opened until the word is given, teachers patrol with footsteps muffled, no help is given. Another teacher once told me that there is nothing more unnatural than a silent classroom in a primary school; the feel of the exam hall in SATs week certainly makes me uncomfortable.
Some people argue that children need to learn about how it feels to sit an exam, strategies for passing a test and to deal with the pressure of an exam-type situation.
At ten years old? Really?! What relevance do those things have to such young children? Can they not wait until secondary school? The counter-argument goes: need they wait? On that basis though, why not bring much more of what happens at secondary school forward to children's formative years at primary school?
At ten years old, every minute of school should be spent finding things out, developing new skills, discovering and honing strengths and having fun in learning. Children love school when they're ten. Any time not spent doing those things that matter most at that age is an opportunity lost.
I'm all for having high expectations of the children I teach; I am always amazed by their capacity to learn and by their achievements. Those expectations, however, have to be balanced with the simple value of childhood and the preservation of it. SATs, I am afraid, run counter to that.
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