Wednesday briefing:
Good morning. Almost everything about adulthood stinks, but it has one important benefit: nobody can ever make you take another exam. Who among us looks back fondly on turning over a sheaf of paper to find out which particular gaps in your knowledge are about to be ruthlessly exposed? And who doesn’t feel a shiver of sympathy for the children going through the same thing today – and gratitude that at least this time, it isn’t you?
Year 6 pupils in England, who sat their key stage 2 tests (widely known as Sats, or standardised assessment tests) last week, might be justified in feeling particularly hard done by: they face far more onerous assessment than their counterparts across the rest of the UK, and can look to 10 and 11-year-olds in comparable systems from Canada to New Zealand for proof that another approach is possible.
In the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis, and after the alarm was raised over a particularly brutal English test last week that was said to have left some pupils in tears, those worries look particularly salient. Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s education correspondent Sally Weale, is about the long-running fight over Sats, and why so many teachers and parents are calling for an overhaul.
You may now look at the headlines. You have five minutes to complete this newsletter. Do not use a calculator.
