Kirklees teachers’ plans to boycott national SATs tests

Apr 30 2010 By Emma Davison

UP TO 3,600 pupils in Kirklees will not sit their SATs tests after teachers voted to boycott them.

Primary school pupils across the country are due to sit the exams in English and maths next month.

But following a vote by union members, 83 out of the 112 eligible schools in Kirklees have said they plan not to run Standard Assessment Tests, known as National Curriculum Tests.

As primary school heads gathered in Huddersfield yesterday to discuss the plans, council bosses admitted the boycott could affect thousands of 11-year-olds

A Kirklees Council spokeswoman said: “Preliminary information from trade unions indicates that around 83 schools in Kirklees may choose not to administer the end of the Key Stage 2 tests as part of the industrial action proposed.

“This action may affect up to 3,600 pupils.”

Members of the National Union of Teachers and National Association of Head Teachers have been campaigning for years for the SATs to be abolished.

Kirklees NUT secretary Howard Roberts slammed the tests as bad for education and for causing unnecessary stress to both pupils and teachers.

“These tests are grossly unfair,’’ he said. “They are nothing but public league tables for the humiliation of schools. That’s why we’re taking action and have strong support of the schools because they know it’s wrong.

“The schools are there to educate the children, but instead they are having to be put through these totally unfair series of tests which have nothing to do with education.

“This single set of results is being used to make a judgement on how good or bad a school is but, in reality, they tell parents next to nothing about what is being done in the schools or how hard they are working with the children.

“Children should be in school learning, not being trained how to take tests that will be used for some political league tables.