It came as quite a shock. After there had appeared to be an announcement that national curriculum assessments wouldn’t take place in key stage 1 this year, the government has done a bit of a U-turn. It’s now proposing that the Year 1 phonics check should take place for Year 2 pupils in the autumn term. 

My immediate concern is for those children going back. These will be some of the younger pupils in school - most of them still only six years old - and we need to put emphasis on their wellbeing and mental health. 

I understand that there is some flexibility about when in the autumn term the tests can be taken. But, at the same point, it’s their first term back. They’ll still be settling back into school life - and who knows what else will be going on in the autumn. And they’re pretty much being told that, right away, they will have to do a test.

Many children may have had a challenging time during lockdown. Just because the test doesn’t happen until the second half of term doesn’t mean that they’ll be fully settled back, or will be capable of showing what they really know.

Added stress and pressure

What also concerns me is that, in the lead-up to that test, teachers will feel under pressure to spend an awful lot of time trying to fill children with what they’re going to need to know in order to pass that test. 

This is not putting blame on teachers. This phonics test has taken on a life of its own, anyway, in terms of being a high-stakes accountability test. So the danger is that teachers may feel under pressure to put to one side the things that they wanted to focus on, at this important transition time, in order to hammer away at phonics knowledge. 

My second concern is the teachers themselves, and their workload. The test would be an added stress and pressure when teachers have just been put through so much. I just know that this is going to take up a lot of time - time in which children could be learning, instead of being assessed.  

Boycott the test

And so there’s only really one alternative. I would urge schools to refuse to do these tests, and to explain to parents why they don’t think it’s the right thing to be doing at this time. 

Of course, individual teachers don’t exist in a silo. They can’t take the decision to boycott a test without the support of their school. So, yet again, it needs to be poor headteachers who have to take a stand, and take on the government. 

But I think they would be met with a great deal of support from parents. My neighbours’ daughter is going into Year 2, and their absolute concern is: is she going to be safe? Is she going to be happy? Not: how well will she do in a phonics test? 

We really need to highlight that this test isn’t going to make children better at reading. Good teaching is what does that, and teachers need to be left to get on with that. We also need to focus on good mental health, wellbeing and social skills - and on getting back into the classroom. 

Trusting teachers

I don’t think children will lose out in the slightest. I’ve worked in schools for many, many years, and I know that teachers won’t be going back and just leaving children’s reading and phonics. They’ll have a pretty good picture of each child from the teacher who taught those children last year. Once they start sharing books and reading together with children, they’ll get a real sense of what they know. 

And teachers will do their own assessment, to identify gaps and next steps - which is what the phonics test was originally supposed to be, anyway, before it grew into a monster. They don’t need an externally imposed check for that. 

Essentially, it’s about trusting teachers to do the right thing for their children. This is what they’ve done, throughout this crisis. Schools have always worked hard to find out what children know and need to do next. So let them prioritise what they need to do, when they need to do it. 

I know that headteachers don’t feel as supported by the government as they think they should have been at this time. At so many stages, they’ve had to use their own initiative about what’s the right thing to do, and then to act on that initiative. 

So I have absolute faith that, this time, too, they will know what’s the right thing for their school, and that they will do it. 

Kym Scott worked for the London borough of Lewisham for 15 years as a school improvement advisor for early years. She is an author, consultant and founder member of the Keep Early Years Unique campaign