Standard Assessment Tasks (Hansard, 11 May 1993)

§ 1. Mrs. Roche
To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many schools he has received representations from urging him to make this year's SATs voluntary; and what proportion this is of the total number of schools in the state system.

§ 4. Mr. Wells
To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will direct the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority to consider simplifying tests at seven, 11 and 14 years of age on the principle of establishing tests that take minimal teacher and pupil time while being effective measures of achievement of basic skills.

§ The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten)
Since the beginning of the year, the Department has received about 6,500 letters about testing, making many different points. I have asked Sir Ron Dearing to review the national curriculum and assessment framework with the aim of simplifying it while retaining the key features of clear teaching objectives, regular tests and high standards. I shall, with permission, make a statement about further arrangements later today.

§ Mrs. Roche
Given the widespread opinion among parents, school governors, teachers and his own advisers, why cannot the Secretary of State give a clear and unambiguous commitment to withdraw those fatally flawed tests this year?

§ Mr. Patten
The tests to which the hon. Lady has referred—for example, the tests for seven-year-olds—have been proceeding satisfactorily since 1991. They were taken again in 1992. In most primary schools up and down the land, they have been successfully completed already.

§ Mr. Wells
May I urge my right hon. Friend to continue and to persist with testing? Surely the original idea was that the tests should be short, sharp and easily marked, and that they would lead to a proper assessment of the place that each child had reached. There would then be 634 possibilities of remedial action and teaching could be accelerated to higher standards for those able to achieve them. Is not that the objective?

§ Mr. Patten
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the great Education Reform Act 1988, our whole aim was to begin to catch up with our competitors who had had national curricula and assessment regimes for many decades. It is the Government's intention to continue to catch up as rapidly as possible with our international competitors, while making the national curriculum and the associated testing arrangements as slim and manageable as possible—a process which we have already started with the tests for seven-year-olds.

§ Mrs. Ann Taylor
Will the Secretary of State tell us how many of those 6,500 letters were in favour of the Government's arrangements for testing? Does he recall my advice to him in Education Question Time on 17 November, when I suggested that he should consult his Scottish ministerial colleagues and listen to their explanation of how they had established a system of assessment that enjoyed the confidence of parents and teachers? Why is the Scottish system so unacceptable to English Ministers? Does the Secretary of State's arrogance stretch to his ministerial colleagues? Did he hear the Prime Minister say that Ministers should curb their arrogance? To which Cabinet Ministers does he think the Prime Minister was referring?

§ Mr. Patten
Two things about that: The 6,500 letters that we have received since the beginning of the year contain a wide range of views because—[Interruption.] No—listen, listen. Would the hon. Lady be good enough to listen? The letters contain a wide range of views because anything at all concerning testing, assessment or the curriculum always attracts a wide range of strong and passionate concerns. One is always going to get that and I welcome it because I think that the country needs a great debate on education. The more the general public who are interested and concerned want to write in giving their points of view, the more I welcome it.
I was asked a second question, which I must answer briefly, Madam Speaker. In Scotland, they do not have a Education Reform Act or a statutory national curriculum. The system in Scotland as far as education is concerned is as different as the situation in Scotland is concerned as far as law is concerned where they have a Roman law system.

§ Sir Malcolm Thornton
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that a significant proportion of the letters that his Department has received about testing related to key stage 3 testing, and that much of the evidence on key stage 1 testing—which is now in force in many of our schools and which has been reformed in the light of experience over the past three years—suggests that it is now beginning to bring benefits, as recent Her Majesty's inspectorate reports have shown? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, in this whole debate, the principle of testing is not negotiable but is an integral part of the Government's reforms?

§ Mr. Patten
There is not an inch between my hon. Friend and me on the issue of testing. I can certainly confirm that a number of the 6,500 letters were about key stage 3 testing. Many more were about key stage 1 testing at age seven. I must tell my hon. Friend and the House that we are awaiting the results of a ballot held by the National Union of Teachers, which wishes to stop, not only this year 635 but next year, teaching at all levels; I am so sorry, it wishes to stop testing at all levels—at seven, 11 and 14—not only in 1993 but in 1994, including those very successful tests for seven-year-olds which Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools yesterday commended when he launched the Office for Standards in Education's five-year corporate plan.

§ Mr. Steinberg
Does the Secretary of State agree that, given that the tests have proved to be flawed, that the vast majority of teachers propose to boycott them and that parents are totally against them, the tests really cannot go ahead? If the Secretary of State finds that he cannot get his own way—due to his arrogance—will he introduce legislation to force teachers to carry out the tests?

§ Mr. Patten
The hon. Gentleman must wait and see what is in the Queen's speech this year, next year or the year after. The hon. Gentleman has a perfectly legitimate interest, which he has declared, in the NUT. I can tell him that I have had his friend Mr. McAvoy in for a cup of tea in my Department to discuss these issues. Mr. McAvoy—who, I can reveal, I actually quite like personally, although I disagree with him profoundly on professional matters—has told me that he is totally against regular testing of children at key stages year by year and totally against the publication of results school by school.