Listen to Alexandra Blair on the proposed school changes

Bright children are to face a battery of tests under a “lighter touch” regime to stretch the most able and measure every child’s progress through school. The move indicates an end to across-the-board SATs tests at ages 11 and 14.

In a two-year pilot at ten authorities, intelligent pupils may be tested as many as five times in seven years, up to the age of 14. It paves the way for a radical reform of league tables.

At present under pre-GCSE national tests, children across the country are assessed at the end of each national curriculum “key stage”: by their teachers when they are aged 7, and through tests in English, mathematics and science when they are 11 and 14.

In the pilot areas, teachers will enter individual pupils into more focused “single-level” tests when they are ready. The Government will then aggregate the results to measure schools’ achievements.

There will be one-to-one tuition for under-achievers and cash bonuses to schools whose pupils meet progress targets.

The Government says that the system will be more transparent, as it gives parents more information about their children than before.

The Department for Education says that since 1997 nearly 100,000 more 11-year-olds have achieved the expected standard in English and 83,000 more in maths. However, pupils are failing to meet national targets and progress has stalled.

The answer, according to Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, is to provide “personalised learning”, where schools are measured on the rates of progress they make with pupils and teachers decide when children are ready for their tests.

“Despite everyone’s best efforts, children don’t develop at the same pace,” Mr Johnson said. Under the new proposals, children would be tested more flexibly and their progress measured year on year instead of at the end of each key stage.

Mr Johnson insisted that the tests, which start in September, would not end league tables or national targets were they introduced nationally. “I want to make it possible for children to take an externally marked test whenever the pupil is ready, rather than only at the end of a long key stage,” he said.

Sue Hackman, chief adviser on school standards, said that the pilots were in part motivated by findings that thousands of pupils who achieved the expected level on leaving primary school then regressed at secondary school. An investigation revealed that many, especially boys, would be re-engaged with rewards and more attention.

As a result, ministers are planning a personal tuition scheme costing £6 million, which they hope will target about 10,000 such pupils. Tutoring may take place out of hours in school, at home or at drop-in centres.

Teachers welcomed the prospect of an end to the high-stakes tests, but gave warning that the new regime risked placing an even greater burden on staff and pupils. John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that moving away “from high-stakes national tests” was welcome, but added that he opposed strongly the “progression premium”, pointing out that it was far harder for schools to make progress with pupils aged 7-11 than later on.

David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, said that while almost half children leaving primary school did so without achieving satisfactory standards, the Government was right to recognise that more needed to be done to raise standards in the classroom. “It is absurd if personal tuition is the only alternative to mixed-ability classes. The obvious middle-way is to have more setting and streaming, which sadly the Government ignores,” he said.

Testing regime

• Two million children sit national curriculum tests at the ages of 7, 11 and 14 each year in England
  
  
• School-by-school results are published at 11 and 14
  
  
• Tests at 7 have been downgraded and teacher assessments given greater weight
  
  
• Pupils took the first tests in 1993
  
  
• Wales abolished league tables and the tests for seven-year-olds in 2001. It is replacing tests at 11 and 14 with teacher assessments. Neither Scotland nor Northern Ireland publish league tables of test results

  Source: Times Archives

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