Sunday 2 May 2010

Support the Head Teachers

This letter has been forwarded to me as a former teacher.

The NUT are a fairly militant and main stream Union.

They are supporting the National Association of Head Teachers who most people would describe and a very responsible union who only would take action under extreme circumstances.

They see the SATs as being counterproductive, and I agree fully with their view.

What happens in primary schools is a switch in the teaching emphasis in the last year, year 6, to one entirely geared to achieving good SATs results.

This puts a strain on both pupils and staff.

Pupils in my view stop being educated - encouraged to be inquisitive and enthusiastic about learning - in favour of being coached to do well in a set of exams.

Over the last five years the Head Teachers have done all they can with the present Labour Government to persuade them to drop this kind of testing.

I hope you will support this petition to get the message across and support the stance of the NAHT which is currently in the news.



Please sign our petition to end SATs

Well over 30,000 people have now signed the NUT and NAHT's petition to end SATs. As our boycott of SATs in 2010 approaches, we're asking for your help to boost our wider educational campaign. If you haven't already, please go to www.teachers.org.uk/petition to sign the on-line petition.

If you've already signed up then please try to encourage at least one friend to sign up too - feel free to send this email on to non-teachers.

More support for our campaign

You can check the front page of the NUT website for highlights on the SATs campaign and go to www.teachers.org.uk/assessment for more detailed information and resources.

We are very pleased to have recently received support from children's authors such as Michael Rosen, Alan Gibbons, Roger McGough, Beverley Naidoo and Ros Asquith (see the campaigns section of the website).

Robin Alexander of the Cambridge Review wrote in the Guardian on 27 April calling for politicians to 'Ditch the discredited dogma that there is no alternative to SATs'.

Please do what you can to support the campaign for an end to SATs!

Yours sincerely,


NUT GENERAL SECRETARY

4 comments:

Gladys Hobson said...

I totally agree.
However, I believe children should receive word recognition check ups at frequent intervals, especially the poorer readers. The intention being to see the best way to improve reading (and all communication skills) on an individual and group basis.

Anonymous said...

my daughters school has opted out of them, much to her delight !

Anonymous said...

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Geoff Dellow said...

I can't offer you any further information.

You would be better using the Internet.