Dear Ms Morgan,
I am writing as a Chair of Governors of a voluntary aided 2 form entry primary school, however I am not writing on behalf of the staff or children of our school – these are my own views. I am also not intending to blame you for everything that is happening in our schools at the moment as I fully understand that you are but one of many people who have tinkered with our education system over recent years.
As a governor at our school, I have been going in to school this week to see the process of opening the SATs papers and then to observe the tests taking place.
There are two main reasons for this letter and please be assured, I am not a letter writer or a complainer – I usually leave that to others!
Firstly, yesterday! I’m sure by now you are fed up with hearing about SATs papers, and specifically the Reading paper that our children sat yesterday, however I feel so strongly that our staff and our children have been dealt a very cruel blow. I know how hard they have been working all this year to be ready for these tests and our staff have done an amazing job at giving children and parents all the information they need so that as a team, they have prepared our children for the SATs. The children were calm, we had no tears or panic, and the children did their very best. However the scores/results that the children get – will they be a reflection of what our children have achieved over the last seven years? Probably not. Very few of our children, if any, seemed to have finished the paper and even some of our more able children did not get on to the 3rd text in the test. It was not a test to test their ability in reading comprehension, it was a test to see if they could cope with the demands of having too much to do in too short a period of time, and therefore having to choose between question 20 & 21, or leaving those and going on to the questions over the page. And for our children who found the test more of a challenge – well I can only imagine. I very much doubt that our children will get test results that reflect what they have achieved, very few will get test results that they or their parents are happy with, and our staff may well be disappointed with the results and therefore our data when it is released – and after a year of relentless hard work to cope with getting ready for new tests on a new curriculum, a new assessment system, and let’s not mention the time that our teachers have spent converting the Statements to EHCPs – whilst they do not moan and complain, I do sometimes wonder why the keep coming back each new term?
Our children coped well with yesterday’s test, thanks to their amazing teachers, but the teachers were disheartened and let down and upset for the children. If the tests results are disappointing as we think they might be, the children will leave our school with a sense of disappointment, their parents may well feel that we have let their children down (though this is not the case), and if we are inspected after results are released, then the inspectors may well be looking at figures that do not accurately reflect the effort and achievement by staff and children this year – how is any of this fair?
Secondly, you are asking all the above (new tests, new curriculum, new assessment systems) from our staff and pupils and they have risen to the challenge, yet you cannot employ a company to securely deliver the tests without leaks!
I am at a loss but just felt that saying encouraging, kind and supportive words to the teachers was no longer enough – I needed to do something more. I hope you notice that I have not even mentioned the debacle over academies (and the hours that I have sat in meetings and conferences listening to how it’s going to be) or the issues around funding (or lack of) for our schools – let’s leave that for another day – maybe another letter!
