By Mark Mitchell, Solihull
A missed opportunity to improve education for our children
The Curriculum and Assessment Review’s publication has left me feeling that once again we have missed the opportunity to improve education for our children. Perhaps it is because we are asking the wrong question? After all, the point of education is not to ‘Build a world-class curriculum for all’… surely it is to enable all children to achieve all that they can at the start of a lifelong journey of learning.
Were a review to start from that perspective, I can’t help but think that we may come to some very different conclusions. What are the main concerns for our children at the moment? Their mental health and emotional well-being? Low rates of attendance, especially for vulnerable groups? The widening of the attainment gap for disadvantaged children and young people? What would a world-class education system do to improve outcomes for those groups? As a Primary Headteacher myself, I see the disproportionate impact of the assessment regime on children with additional and complex needs and those with a level of disadvantage socioeconomically, and the review will do nothing to change this in my opinion.
Our assessment framework continually punctuates the learning journey of children with high stakes opportunities to fall short of an unrealistic, idyllic journey of progress for children. We know that children develop in different ways, at different paces and in different aptitudes. One size simply cannot fit all! It highlights those that don’t fit the ideal age-related expectations (I am so glad that these are not applied more widely in society as I am not sure how I would be doing?). Of course, we need end point assessments at year 13, so that as children leave the education system their achievements can be validated. However, who benefits from, for example, the assessments made on children on entry to reception? It takes teaching staff away from enabling children to make a smooth transition into full-time education and tells them nothing they cannot easily assess by other means. This is equally true for the phonics check and the end of KS2 SATs.
The review seems to have been distracted by a focus on the curriculum, when it’s the assessment framework that is causing the detrimental impact. Children will far surpass the expectations of the curriculum when they are valued for who they are, not the score they can achieve. When they can be allowed to learn at their own pace, with peaks and troughs. When more than their academic success is validated. Schools are constantly swimming against the tide of the numerous assessments as we try to tell children we don’t need them to do any better than their best in a test… while giving them additional materials to support them, holding special meetings to support their anxious parents and letting them practise for a test we have just told them doesn’t matter… it clearly does. And many of them in year 6 leave the test room in tears. This is not because schools have pressured them… the system has. And I would suggest that a world-class system would not leave the children it is supposed to be supporting feeling such deep distress!
This inbuilt pressure in the system is a substantial factor in driving excellent professionals out of the classroom; it is a significant reason why we have an ever-increasing number of children experiencing poor mental health; it’s why more and more children refuse to attend school at all. Our school system should be designed for the most vulnerable children to feel accepted and valued. If it is good for them, it will be good for others too.
I can’t help but think that further, significant change is needed to avoid irreversible damage to our nation’s future. And it would not be hard to achieve with courageous leadership and child-centred thinking.