Morning Star.png Education Minister wants Exam Factories British Conservative Party's version of "ANAs" Conrad Landin, The Morning Star, London, 3 November 2015 Schools risk becoming "exam factories" under Tory [Conservative Party government] plans to bring back standardised exams for seven-year-olds, unions warned yesterday. Education secretary [i.e. Minister] Nicky Morgan raised teachers' eyebrows with plans for a "national teaching service" and a new target for nine in 10 secondary pupils to sit GCSEs in so-called "core" subjects. A review of Key Stage 1 tests is likely to see assessments in reception classes followed by externally marked tests at the end of Year 2. Ms Morgan insisted that it was parents' responsibility to make sure their kids didn't feel under pressure and to "manage" expectations. "They are not exams, they are tests. There are ways for schools and parents to manage that," she told an audience at right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. "When my son did his Key Stage 1 tests he didn't know he'd taken them until afterwards." But National Union of Teachers deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney branded the blueprint "educationally harmful, unreliable, costly and damaging to children." Britain "already has the most excessively tested children in the whole of Europe," he said. "Children and young people urgently need the formal assessment burden on them reduced." Fellow teaching union NASUWT said that Ms Morgan's plans demonstrated muddled thinking. "Today's announcement on testing and the promised review and consultation staggeringly seems set to sideline the views of those who actually teach the pupils in favour of simply taking a management perspective," said NASUWT leader Chris Keates. Ms Morgan's planned teaching service would aim to recruit 1,500 of the "brightest and best" teachers by 2020 to work in the toughest schools - with a potential cash boon offered as an incentive. She said that schools should raise the number of kids sitting the English baccalaureate subjects of English, maths, science, history or geography and a language from 39 per cent to 90 per cent. [email protected] From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-720c-Morgan-hails-new-age-of-exam-facto ry-schools#.VjmC6rcrK00 See also: <http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-ee52-Students-to-march-against-worst-a ttack-since-Thatcher-1-2> Students To March Against 'Worst Attack Since Thatcher' -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
