Headteachers’ leaders have called for a range of primary school assessments to be ditched in a submission to the government’s curriculum and assessment review.
The NAHT school leaders’ union says the multiplication tables check, the phonics screening check and key stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling tests are all “unnecessary and should be scrapped”.
It also warns that the national curriculum and qualification specifications are overcrowded, and says the review provides an opportunity for these to be streamlined.
Paul Whiteman, the union’s general secretary, said the current primary statutory assessment system, including Sats, “does not support children’s progress, foster positive mental health or encourage a broad and balanced curriculum”.
Pressure for changes in assessment
On secondary education, he added: “Measures such as the EBacc must be scrapped and Progress 8 reformed if the government truly wants to encourage curriculum breadth and take up of the creative arts.”
The EBacc (English Baccalaureate) is a performance measure created by the previous government that assesses how well a school’s students have performed in English, maths, science, a humanity - either history or geography - and a modern foreign language.
Mr Whiteman said the review, being chaired by Professor Becky Francis, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, provides “a golden opportunity to update a 10-year-old curriculum so that it is relevant, fully reflects the diversity of our society and prepares children and young people for their lives in the modern world”.
Describing the current national curriculum and qualification specifications as “overcrowded and unmanageable”, Mr Whiteman added: “Reducing the overall burden of content could have a range of positive impacts - improving the quality of teaching and learning, enhancing pupils’ experiences of learning, increasing engagement, creating the flexibility needed to ensure learning is relevant to pupils in every school community and better meeting individual needs.”
In its response the NAHT also points to the need for wider qualification reforms.
Mr Whiteman said: “Young people have a wide range of abilities, strengths and ambitions, and a much wider range of qualifications than GCSEs, A levels and T levels is necessary to meet those needs and to assess their achievements.”
He said a qualification offer is needed that gives “everyone the opportunity to access and achieve meaningful qualifications across a range of academic and vocational subjects using a variety of assessment methods”.
The curriculum and assessment review’s call for evidence closes on Friday. It will publish its recommendations next year.
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