Commenting on today’s publication of key stage 2 test results, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, said;
“Children and teachers have worked really hard in year 6 for the SATs exams and we should recognise this tremendous effort. However, this comes at a huge cost to the wellbeing and wider education of pupils. There is so much more to a child's primary school achievement and development than SATs results and teachers can provide much broader, rounded summations of pupils' achievements.
“NEU members tell us constantly that KS2 SATs narrow the curriculum and place unnecessary stress on many pupils, which school staff have to witness and mitigate against. We urge the Government to scrap these harmful tests and view primary education as more than just this limited set of results”.