The Standard Assessment Tasks and the boycott at Key Stage 1: teachers’ and headteachers’ views in six inner‐city schools

Abstract

This study examined headteachers’ perspectives on the 1993 teachers’ boycott of standard assessment tasks (SATs) together with the teachers’ attitudes towards the tasks, their management and the boycott of the SATs. Headteachers were generally sympathetic to the boycott, but the response of governors was more varied. In only one school was there reported to be any reaction at all to the boycott by parents, and this was before the decision to boycott was taken. Most of the classteachers did not feel positively about the SATs in general. The increased workload and time‐consuming nature of the tests was a common theme to emerge, together with the concomitant view that teacher assessments were as good. Nevertheless, some of the SATs were liked more than others; most teachers felt positively about the.reading test and many liked the writing test, although the emphasis on punctuation was not liked. These two SATs were also felt to be the most accurate. The science and mathematics SATs were not, in general, liked. There was concern that the SATs did not accurately reflect the attainment of children with special educational needs or language needs. It was reported that children who were not being tested were not being taught whilst the SATs were taking place. This was felt to be unsatisfactory. The majority of teachers felt that the decision to boycott was the right one to have made. Key issues arising from the research are discussed and policy implications presented in the context of the proposals from the Interim and Final Reports of the Review of the National Curriculum and its Assessment (Dearing, 1993a,b).

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Notes on contributors

Anne West

Dr Anne West is Director of Research and a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Educational Research at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Dr Pam Sammons is Associate Director of the International School Effectiveness and Improvement Centre, Institute of Education, University of London, Jean Hailes is a Research Officer in the Centre for Educational Research at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Professor Desmond Nuttall was formerly Professor of Curriculum and Assessment Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London.