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Michael Rosen |
Kids’ novelist urges boycott of SATs exams
CHILDREN’S novelist and poet Michael Rosen has urged teachers to boycott SATs next year unless the government agrees to scrap the controversial primary school exams.
The former Children’s Laureate said the end-of-school tests for 11-year-olds had been a “disaster” for pupils and teachers. He likened them to a mindless endurance test.
Mr Rosen, who lives in Hackney, said: “The government has got to move away from its obsession with testing kids. It’s much like asking children to climb an army assault course – the result tells you nothing about the actual person.
“Teachers are hamstrung by SATs. They narrow the curriculum. The whole idea has been a disaster from the start. They should be abolished. If they are not, I am backing a boycott.”
Mr Rosen will speak alongside Canonbury headteacher Sue Seifert and parent Julie Hunt at a campaign meeting in Islington Central Library in Fieldway Crescent on October 15. It is part of a nationwide tour following an agreement by the The National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) to ballot members on a boycott of SATs tests if they go ahead next year.
Mr Rosen, who is also a lecturer, has devised a new Children’s MA that he will teach at Birkbeck University. He added: “We have been speaking across the country – every time we have had a headteacher and a teacher on the podium. That is crucially important.”
More than 10,000 people have signed their online petition threatening a boycott of next year’s exams.
Ken Muller, assistant secretary of Islington NUT, said: “SATs are no less than child abuse. Teachers aren’t against assessing children, they do it all the time to inform their teaching. What we are against is national testing which tells teachers and parents nothing useful.” |
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