Education secretary John Swinney will reassure teachers today that the individual results pupils achieve in new standardised national tests will not be published. Instead they will be known to teachers, helping confirm or refine judgements about pupil progress, while the Scottish Government will instead collect data on national trends to inform policy.
The percentage of pupils reaching particular stagesin reading, writing and numeracy under the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) will continue to be collated on a national basis and published, but these are based on teacher judgements and not the test results alone.
It has taken a great deal of time and antagonism to get to this point. If what we have ended up with is a useful diagnostic tool for teachers, that is no bad thing.
But we have come a long way from what First Minister Nicola Sturgeon first apparently proposed. National tests were conceived as a solution to a lack of consistency in the way teachers were interpreting the levels pupils had reached under CfE and the fact that there was no wider publication of these figures. Standardised assessments were being used routinely across Scotland, but these were bought in and could not be compared across council boundaries.
As a result, ministers felt unable to tell how many pupils were making the expected progress under CfE amid concerns about possible falling standards.
There is a suggestion that by providing a consistent national benchmark , the new Scottish National Standards Assessments (SNSA) will make it easier for teachers to be confident in the judgements they already make. Where progress is not being made fast enough by an individual, or where patterns suggest a whole subject or a class of pupils is struggling, the assessments can help teachers take effective action.
While it will continue to dismay those who object in principle to national testing, Mr Swinney’s announcement may satisfy the concerns of many teachers, though there is still the prospect of industrial action if councils do not address related concerns about the timing of the tests. Now we known individual pupil outcomes will not be published – which might have enabled the generation of school “league tables” – this should bring an end to the main question at issue, that of data handling.
The most salutary aspect of the arrival of the SNSAs has been the political heat generated by the policy: An initial announcement lacking in detail upset many teachers and generated headlines. Opposition politicians stepped into a vacuum of the Scottish Government’s making, condemning or championing the outline proposals. Ministers were too slow to clarify their intentions, while teachers feared tests would be used to judge them, thereby encouraging “teaching to the test”.
Now we have clarity, what schools need is a period of stability to judge whether the assessments are making a positive difference without the more negative consequences that many still fear.
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 here