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By DAN CARRIER
 

Andy Knowles
Exam culture failing pupils

Former Hampstead head hits out at awful ‘pressure’ put on children

A SCHOOL exam culture is failing to raise standards and puts pupils under immense and unnecessary strain, according to the former head of Hampstead School.
Andy Knowles, who left the Westbere Road school at the start of the Easter holidays to take up a new job as assistant director in the Town Hall new department for children, schools and families, believes regular tests have no benefit for pupils and can be detrimental to learning.
The teacher, who taught at the school in West Hampstead for 20 years, told the New Journal: “Children in the UK are tested more than anywhere else in the world – and the pressure can be totally appalling. Testing does not improve standards. It can mean the curriculum gets pushed to one side – and this a serious problem.”
Mr Knowles, who started in 1986 as a design and technology teacher, became deputy head in the mid-90s and took over the headship in 2000, believes a European model of less tests could improve standards.
He said: “Children on the continent start school later and there is a more relaxed atmosphere. This does not mean education is not as demanding – it means learning is geared in a different way.”
Cheshire-born Mr Knowles qualified as a teacher in 1976 after training at Goldsmiths College, New Cross. He worked in schools across London before deciding to have a career break teaching English as a foreign language in Salonika, northern Greece to experience a foreign culture – “My pupils learnt much more English than I learnt Greek” – and then came home to learn computer programming. But the lure of the classroom proved too much, and the father of three – his oldest is 14 and at a comprehensive near his home in Pinner, Harrow, while his youngest is just 12 weeks old – rejoined the profession in 1986.
Life since his first day in front of the black board has changed “immeasurably” since Mr Knowles joined the school. He continued: “In terms of discipline and how it was when I first started, things have not changed hugely. But other aspects have. Family circumstances and on the street there is more trouble. At Hampstead, there are few gang related instances, but gang culture is something you have to think about every day in school.”
And popular culture also presents unique problems for teachers. Mr Knowles continued: “Aspects of the music industry, that is so influential, is distasteful. You have to get pupils to challenge images they are seeing: images that are derogatory to women, or homophobic.”
He continued: “Students and their families expect more from the school.”
But he does not think this is an example of why exam passes have gone up.
He says the O-levels his generation sat are comparable to today’s GCSEs.
He added: “They test different things. GCSEs test the application of knowledge rather than simply remembering facts.”
And now he is ready to see education from an administrative side – and will watch with interest the effects of the new education bill. He admits he would not want Hampstead to opt out of local authority control and become a foundation school, which the school would be able to do if the new bill becomes law.
He added: “My life as a head would not have been made easier if the school was a trust. Camden education authority is supportive. It may be different in other parts of the country, but our links and co-operation with other schools and the Town Hall is important.”
 
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