Government in sensible decision shocker!

[hartleyhare]

This is the best news I've had in ages.

Comments

[sidheag]

Good!

[hartleyhare]

This will make such a huge difference to secondary English teaching. We were bemoaning the rubbishness of the Key Stage 3 tests on Saturday, and saying how much we wished they'd get rid of them. And now it's happened!

[sam_t]

Sounds good to me!

[hartleyhare]

There aren't many times when I've felt as if I've had a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, but this is one of them!

[buzzy_bee]

Excellent news!

[hartleyhare]

I have made a cake to celebrate. It seemed the only appropriate response.

[lurpak]

Good. I hope they scrap the tests for years 2 and 6 too! None of the teachers at my younger daughter's school want to teach Year 2 these days, they're such a headache.

[hartleyhare]

I can imagine - don't the teachers do most of the assessment at KS1, rather than sending them off to external markers?

It is a v good thing - we celebrated with cake in the staffroom :-)

[k425]

You know, I didn't even have to click the link to know what it was. All we need now is KS2 to go and we're sorted.

[hartleyhare]

And KS1! I am looking forward to teaching Year Nines proper things rather than drilling them for silly tests.

[k425]

Strangely, I'd forgotten about KS1. Ah, I know why. I used to work with the team that wrote the KS2/3 maths test for Wales (so, bilingual tests) and I remember when Wales decided to dump KS1 tests.

We worked really hard to make the tests equivalent - the same questions were used for the same levels in both KS, so if you were a KS2 L5 child, you'd be doing the same question as a KS3 L5 child - so schools could be assured that the tests meant something when child moved from primary to secondary.