Going ahead with Sats this year, for the first time during the pandemic, has been described as an “utterly brutal decision” by the president of the NEU teaching union.
In his speech at the NEU’s annual conference today, Daniel Kebede also warned that the government’s target of 90 per cent of key stage 2 pupils getting to the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030 will create “a true sweatshop of educational exploitation”.
He told delegates that Ofsted was driving teachers out of the profession and should be replaced.
And he blamed the government for the disruption that Covid has caused to pupils’ education during the pandemic.
Mr Kebede said: “In exactly four weeks’ time, Year 6 pupils will be taking the first of their Sats exams.
“Despite the continuing chaos of Covid, despite the need to plan a programme of recovery from the pandemic, despite the need for us to focus on children’s social and relational skills, despite the need for focus on children’s wellbeing and mental health, this government has insisted that these flawed tests should go ahead.
“What an utterly brutal decision following the trauma and isolation of Covid.”
Referring to the government’s 90 per cent Sats target, he added: “If Sats, as we know them, are the basis of the primary school exam factory, then the Sats of 2030 will create a true sweatshop of educational exploitation, that puts the meeting of arbitrary targets before the learning and wellbeing of pupils.”
He warned that GCSEs and post-16 examinations were also about to be held in “conditions of uncertainty and unfairness”.
Renewed call to abolish Ofsted
Mr Kebede has also criticised Ofsted and called for it to be replaced.
He said: “Ofsted were absent without leave during the pandemic. They were nowhere to be seen in our schools, and they were not missed.
“Even the National Audit Office concluded that, ‘Ofsted does not know whether its school inspections have an impact.’ So, a question for our evidence-based education secretary - why do they still exist?”
Mr Kebede said Ofsted should be replaced with a supportive inspectorate and said that the “excessive workload and stress it causes leads to 40 per cent of teachers leaving the profession within ten years”.
He also raised concerns about the Child Q scandal, where a black female secondary school pupil was strip-searched by female police officers because school staff believed the child smelled of cannabis and suspected that she was carrying drugs.
The NEU president said: “What happened doesn’t start with a strip search. It starts with zero-tolerance behaviour policies, a system that disproportionately excludes black children. The absence of democratic accountability in our academised school system; its remoteness from the community.”
This week’s NEU conference in Bournemouth is being held in person for the first time during the Covid pandemic.
Highlighting this, Mr Kebede said that, during this pandemic, “we have had the worst possible government at the worst possible time.”
He added: “Nadhim Zahawi has recently said school closures were wrong.
“Well, I say this to the education secretary: our schools never closed, and I tell you what has been wrong: this government.
“They were wrong to not shrink class sizes to minimise spread, to not mobilise our supply sector colleagues, to not create Nightingale classrooms, to not provide enough ventilation and air filtration, and wrong to not invest in safe continuity of education.
“Children, young people, need school, need education. We have always believed this. The blame for any disruption to education lies with this government of chaos, and them alone.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: ”Primary assessments are vital to building our knowledge of the impact of the pandemic on pupils, so that we can give support to the schools and pupils that need it the most.
“We have already announced that the results of this year’s primary assessments will not be published in key stage 2 performance tables, and we will ensure clear messages are placed alongside any data from 2021/22 given the uneven impact of the pandemic.”
