Testing times

Possibly the worst in a queue of bad news stories today is the suggestion that “government advisers” are looking at revising tests for 14 year olds. As usual with this government, we are not talking about what’s best for kids, or what other successful countries do. (One of the key effects of Brexits that we should never, ever look abroad for good ideas. All the good stuff is already here).

No, it’s pleasing “the base” that counts. The voters they want to hold on to think that Gove did a great job in education, and we need someone like him back, to say that teachers are doing a lousy job and only regular, tough tests can ensure that our kids are actually learning. The actual consequences of this, for how time is spent in the classroom, for the ways in which pupils are asked to learn, are always and predictably disastrous, but they don’t care about that. They’re not in a real world, wondering how best to educate teenagers. They’re drawing diagrams, of rigour and robustness, in search of the headlines that will tell them they are tough.