The Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSAs) on literacy and numeracy should be scrapped at all stages and replaced by a sample survey, according to Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie.
Mr Rennie said that the gathering of the data on literacy and numeracy attainment in primary - called the Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence levels (Acel) data - was leading to school league tables and all their “ill effects”, as well as causing parents to judge schools “inappropriately”.
In an interview with Tes Scotland, he said that national testing and the collection of Acel data should be scrapped and replaced with a sample survey which tests a number of children every year - but does not attempt to test every child.
Mr Rennie, who is also a former leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, said: “If you collect the data at the level of the individual pupil, you end up with league tables and all the worst effects of league tables.
“What you get is the data that’s provided with the Acel is then turned into league tables by national newspapers, which creates a focus on the performance of individual schools irrespective of the added value provided by the school.”
‘Narrowing of the curriculum’
He added: “That in turn gets the school to focus on a narrower set of criteria that are examined through the process rather than the broader education that you are trying to encourage.
“So you get a narrowing of the curriculum and unhelpful pressure that doesn’t allow for that broader education.”
Teachers are supposed to use the SNSAs in literacy and numeracy to support their judgements about whether pupils in P1, P4, P7 and S3 are hitting the expected level for their age and stage. This teacher judgement data (Acel data) is then reported in December.
The Scottish government does not use the data to compile league tables, but it does report the figures at school-level and national newspapers have used this information to rank schools.
In the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, the party said it would “stop the SNP’s national testing of five-year-olds, as requested by Parliament in 2018”.
However, speaking to Tes Scotland, Mr Rennie said the party’s position was now to get rid of the assessments altogether.
He added: “That doesn’t mean you don’t measure progress; it’s about how you collect the data.”
He called for a return of the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy (SSLN), the annual sample survey that the SNSAs replaced, and which monitored national performance in literacy and numeracy in alternate years, for school pupils at P4, P7 and S2.
Mr Rennie added: “The old [SSLN] sample size wasn’t sufficient to be able to give sufficient confidence so we need a bigger sample to be able to draw better conclusions but you could get the national monitoring through that without having the league tables.”
Tests ‘holding back play-based learning’
He suggested that literacy and numeracy testing was holding back play-based learning in early primary.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats support raising the school starting age to seven, believing that more play-based learning would help children acquire important learning and social skills before formal schooling starts.
Mr Rennie recently supported the motion submitted to the Scottish Parliament by SNP MSP and former primary teacher Kaukab Stewart, calling for a national conversation about a later school starting age and a kindergarten model for early-years education.
The motion has achieved cross-party support, which means it could be debated in the Parliament.
However, Mr Rennie said that testing in P1 and a play-based model in early primary were incompatible with each other - something that was raised at the SNP conference in 2022 when members backed a motion to raise the formal school starting age to six.
He added: “They can’t coexist because it’s putting pressure on the performance in a narrow area when you want a play-based, more exploratory approach. So I think the two are inconsistent.”
A survey by primary school leaders’ body the AHDS of almost 1,300 members found that almost 60 per cent agreed that SNSAs were generally useful
However, that figure dropped to 28.9 per cent when it came to the testing of P1s.
A key concern among principal teachers, deputes and headteachers was the time that the P1 assessments take to run and process.
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