Greens hail headteachers' courage in voting for boycott ballot
Martin Francis, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Brent North, welcomes the National Association of Headteachers' decision to ballot for a boycott of next year's primary SATs.
Rather than create chaos and disruption in schools as some commentators have suggested, a boycott of SATs will allow schools to concentrate on the real job of educating youngsters. Teachers will be able to spend time helping children learn how to think, to debate, to discover the excitement of learning and the pleasures of creativity. Instead of being switched off learning by endless revision classes, boosters and lessons in exam technique they will become engaged and motivated and their teachers will rediscover the joys of teaching.
It is fantastic that the NAHT, representing 80% of primary headteachers, and the NUT, the biggest teachers' union, have come together to liberate learners and teachers from the cold clasp of tests and targets.
The millions of pounds that will be saved in trialling tests, printing test papers, paying markers, delivering and collecting tests and the whole bureaucracy connected with managing the system and producing league tables, could be reallocated to provide much needed resources to enrich the curriculum and improve the quality of education.
I congratulate my former colleagues for their courage in standing up for children and support them in consigning tests to the scrap heap where they belong.
Martin Francis BEd (Hons) MA is a retired primary school headteacher himself and is his local Green Party's spokesperson on Children, Families and Schools.
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