Schools 'drop PE and art to aid pass rates
Primary schools are shunning lessons in history, geography, art and PE to drill children for tests, teachers warned yesterday.
Half of schools admitted to dropping key subjects to give 10- and 11-year-olds extra classes in the run up to end-of-year exams.
Some headteachers said the curriculum was being squeezed throughout the final year of primary school amid pressure to inflate their position on national league tables.
While this is nothing new, I found the comments very telling. Parents and teachers are frustrated. Each proposed remedy seems to make things worse.
Primary school children should be tested. They should not be "drilled for tests". Results have deteriorated markedly since the '60s. The remedy is obvious - return to the teaching methods, ethos and procedures used during that time.
Posted by R. Yeatley on August 7, 2007 4:28 PM
The tests were introduced to see what level the children had reached and assess the standard of teaching at each school. They have changed and now Year 6 pupils can spend at least two months 'preparing' for the tests at the expense of other subjects and topics.
My daughter was at Level 5 before she started Year 6 and still had to go through all the revision work. It still affects her now and as she starts Year 9 we face the prospect of mock Key Stage 3 tests, followed by revision to help the schools position in the league tables. I am so unhappy at yet another chunk of her academic year being wasted,that I am considering boycotting the mock tests and doing battle with the school over these and any revision work. My daughter is academically able and needs to be moved forwards and not left standing still again.
Posted by Anne Mattison on August 7, 2007 1:39 PM
Any teacher worth their pay can tell you exactly how each child in their class is doing in terms of real skill and development IF they are allowed to teach. Under a curriculum that says - literally - Wednesday to Friday, week three of term two, you will deliver nationally set lessons long multiplication and then move on whether or not all the children have understood it, because the curriculum enforces that Monday and Tuesday you will deliver long division - means that you don't have time to know anything about the children's progress or to actually ensure they have the relevant knowledge. The children are the lowest priority in all this target box ticking, this is PURELY about creating favourable government statistics to support re election. This is why I left classroom teaching. Teachers are professionally skilled people with four years of training, many of whom have secondary degree qualifications, who teach infinitely better than politicians, but are no longer allowed to.
Posted by Helen on August 7, 2007 8:21 AM
When I was in grade school, we never "prepared" for the test. We just took it. Then something changed and testing took on a life of its own. This is one of the reasons we avoid institutionalized education. My children do take standardized tests, but we don't spend weeks and months "cramming" for it. I learned the hard way that cramming for the test defeats the purpose of the test.
When my oldest daughter took a standardized test for the first time, I failed the "test." I was anxious for her to perform well. While she was taking the test, I checked her work and then yelled at her for missing questions on material we had covered. It got very ugly and was not one of my finer moments.
That's when I had an epiphany. For the test to be meaningful, it must show what material my children have mastered. Mastery can't be crammed. It is a day after day cumulative process.
Getting a question right on a test is different from understanding and mastering the subject material. If a teacher or parent teaches "to the test," it doesn't lead to subject mastery. It leads to test mastery, but the content is soon forgotten. There is no "skill" that can be utilized outside of the test situation or even on the next test.
When my daughter missed questions I thought were "easy," she was telling me something. She didn't entirely grasp the material. She needed more repetition than she was getting. If she had guessed right or I had helped her cram to do well, I would have missed a valuable data point.
This is why school performance is declining. Children are not learning the material. They are cramming for a test. More often than not, improvement in test scores do not translate to subject mastery or a leg up on the next year's test. The more school/teachers/parents try to help children look good on tests, the further behind the children fall. The more the focus is on the test, the less the focus is on subject mastery.
I have since learned not to look at the tests at all. I just send in the test booklets without a second glance. I do very little test preparation. This way the tests can tell me what I want to know - which subjects have they mastered and which subjects need more work.
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Related Tags: standardized testing, public school, homeschool,
5 comments:
This is a good post. I was just thinking about this recently when I wrote a post on multiple choice. We put too much at stake on these tests when they become the the measure of success. I would much rather my children know how to live a wonderful life than how to pass a test.
Tests definately can't measure "success" but they can only provide a data point along the way.
Great post!
I think that it has become very easy to simply test bash. Yes, there are many schools where too much attention is paid to the test content and process. On the other hand, I live in a state where an overwhelming number of schools can't get half of there students to the passing point on the math sections.
I would love to say that left to their own devices, all classroom teachers would be creative, energetic and persistant; all students would come rested, fed and prepared to learn; all parents would be supportive and interested. But how often are one or all of these lacking?
If you are going to accept the idea of a government provided and regulated educational experience, it seems hard to aggitate too much against the measurement of that education.
I think that for every school where the testing pressure has reduced the art programs and recess time, there may be another school where the knowledge that results will be measured has focused the attention of the school staff.
Now what I would dearly love to clear up is the contrast between teachers and principals who despise the current testing requirements but turn around and insist that there should be more control and oversight of homeschoolers.
>If you are going to accept the idea of a government provided and regulated educational experience, it seems hard to aggitate too much against the measurement of that education.
I'm not sure that I favor a government provided and regulated educational experience. I need to give that one some more thought.
Declining tests scores are a symptom of a greater problem with many causes. Treating the symptoms while ignoring the root causes has led to what we see today.
Blaming the test is like shooting the messager who brings bad news.
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