Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has refused to say whether she would drop controversial national tests for the country’s youngest pupils if MSPs vote against them.
Her government has faced growing pressure over the Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSAs), and concerns about the impact on P1 pupils (aged four and five) in particular have driven a campaign to boycott the tests.
Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesman Tavish Scott asked the first minister this afternoon if she would accept the decision when “the parliament votes to stop the testing of four- and five-year-olds in Primary 1 classes across Scotland”.
In response, Ms Sturgeon said: “We will continue to make the case for what we are doing. I think it’s important to take a calm look at this.
“Assessments are not new in Scottish education - 29 out of 32 councils were already doing Primary 1 assessments, in fact the majority of councils did two a year.
“What the Scottish government has done is standardise them, so that all councils are using the same tool, and we’ve made them more relevant to the Curriculum for Excellence levels.”
She added: “The assessments provide important diagnostic information to inform teacher judgement on how children are developing. And I think that’s important to ensure that, if there are areas where children need extra help, they get that extra help as quickly as possible.
“The assessments are not high stakes and they are not tests - there is no pass or fail. Of course, if a teacher thinks that a young person should not undertake the assessment, that is within their discretion.”
Yesterday, education secretary and deputy first minister John Swinney apologised for mistakes in handling of advice to parents about whether they could opt out of SNSAs, which started in 2017-18 and are taken at P1, P4, P7 and S3.
Meanwhile, a survey by the EIS teaching union has shown that at least eight local authorities are - for now at least - continuing with their own standardised assessments despite the SNSAs being designed to replace them.
The EIS has warned that this increases teacher workload and puts too much pressure on pupils.
The survey also suggests that at least 25 councils had introduced “blanket testing”, where all pupils sit the assessments at the same time, despite the government having previously said teachers should have the freedom to decide when pupils sit the SNSAs.
