TEACHERS are threatening to boycott new standardised national school tests if councils press ahead with plans to make all pupils sit them at the same time.
Under the new Scottish National Standardised Assessments pupils will be tested four times throughout their school life in P1, P4, P7 and S3 to help judge progress in reading, writing and numeracy.
Guidelines state that teachers, in consultation with schools and councils, should decide when, within each year, is the most appropriate time "to understand how individual children are progressing".
Herald View: Pupil testing row has done little to help our schools
However, teaching unions have warned that at least 12 local authorities are telling schools when they expect pupils to sit the tests - raising concerns they are being used to judge teachers rather than help pupils.
The row blew up as John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister and Education Secretary, prepares to announce that the Scottish Government does not intend to collect pupil data from the tests.
Mr Swinney will tell the International Conference on Improvement in Glasgow today that national trend data will be collected from the assessments, but not sufficient detail to create school league tables.
The Scottish Government will continue to publish school by school information on the levels pupils have reached in literacy and numeracy within the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) based on wider teacher judgements.
Herald View: Pupil testing row has done little to help our schools
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), warned councils that intended to force schools to implement blanket testing faced local disputes, with ultimate sanctions including a boycott.
He said: "We have concerns around standardised tests being used to compare schools and we have worked hard with the Scottish Government to make these assessments classroom focused so they help pupils.
"The Scottish Government has issued clear guidelines around not testing whole groups of pupils together at a fixed time of the year.
"However, the concern that is now developing is that a number of councils are reinterpreting the guidance in a way that we would find unacceptable."
Mr Flanagan said around a dozen councils had suggested a "window" within which they expected the tests to be implemented.
For some authorities this was being considered at the end of the school year - which unions believe is too late if the tests are to be used to help teachers "diagnose" pupils' strengths and weaknesses.
Herald View: Pupil testing row has done little to help our schools
Mr Flanagan added: "We are pressuring Scottish Government to make clear what is expected and I will be writing to all council directors of education.
"The advice to our local associations is that, if necessary, a dispute should be lodged with the ultimate sanction being a boycott."
A government spokesman confirmed the scheduling of tests was up to schools.
He said: “Schools will do them at the time of their choosing within the auspices of local authority guidance. We are not prescribing that.
“This is not a set of primary exams or tests that will all be sat at the one time across the country.
“This is to help teachers and it could be done diagnostically in the early part of the year or towards the later part of the year to gather evidence. That is a choice for teachers.”
The tests were introduced because the Government does not believe different standardised assessments used by schools provide sufficient national evidence to establish whether progress is being made in basic skills.
In addition, school level CfE levels published for the first time last year showed a significant disparity across Scotland in the way in which teachers were interpreting the performance of pupils.
However, critics fear introducing any standardised assessment that compares pupils in different schools encourages teachers to “teach to the test”.
Herald View: Pupil testing row has done little to help our schools
There are also fears it could lead to the publication of league tables.
Earlier this year, the EIS approved a motion put forward by its East Renfrewshire local association at its trade union’s annual general meeting in Perth.
It ratified a boycott of the administration of tests if the union believed them to be “detrimental to learning and teaching”.
The tests were introduced because the government does not believe different standardised assessments used by schools provide sufficient national evidence to establish whether progress is being made in basic skills.
In addition, school level CfE levels published for the first time last year showed a significant disparity across Scotland in the way in which teachers were interpreting the performance of pupils.
However, critics fear introducing any standardised assessment which compares pupils in different schools encourages teachers to ‘teach to the test’ and could lead to the publication of league tables.
Earlier this year the EIS approved a motion at its annual general meeting which ratified a boycott of the administration of tests if the union believed them to be "detrimental to learning and teaching".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel