A letter by someone called Rachel Smith I saw on Facebook this morning...
My letter to Nicky Morgan - sent!
Dear Nicky Morgan
I was dreading the session at my son’s primary school about maths and SATS. I was surprised.
We watched children working interactively, working on the floor with concrete objects, working in groups, being encouraged and given time to think, puzzling out different ways of approaching the same problem and succeeding. For the first time in years I had fun working out a maths problem around their topic, the Second World War - using rationing to look at fractions. Then we watched a government video about the tick box exercise that is the new SATS. One parent fell asleep. Others shook their heads in wonder at the contrast.
It’s baffling to us parents. We’ve read the research, that play based learning is most effective, see the results from countries such as Finland, where they don’t test like this or give hours of homework, where they allow the child to lead. We can’t understand why you ignore the experts (the teachers) and the evidence before you.
I love my child’s primary school. I have seen both sons emerge full of talk and amazing facts about their work on the Russian space station, their role-play about air raids. I’ve learnt so much from them. I’ve seen their natural curiosity about the world nurtured and encouraged. And yet with the introduction of these ‘more challenging’ SATS I have seen a dramatic change in my eleven year old. He has had trouble sleeping. He has appeared tired and stressed, teary, on the edge emotionally, full of worries about not being ‘good enough.’ He’s well aware that if he doesn’t pass he will have to retake in Year 7, at secondary school. He knows that he’ll be marked down if he doesn’t use semi-colons correctly, no matter how wildly imaginative his piece of writing is. Activities he has previously loved have been affected. He’s become worried about not being fast enough in swimming, scared of tackling more difficult piano pieces, worrying about not being good enough at climbing. Only this year, since the focus on SATS papers have I seen this self-doubt, seen his confidence ebb, and it breaks my heart.
The truth is he will probably pass without problem, because he happens to have the kind of mind that retains facts. He has an almost photographic memory, lucky him. Looking at the practice papers, I wonder what about the kids that don’t happen to have that sort of mind? Children are not all the same. A friend’s bright sparky child is able to memorise the spelling test in order to pass that particular week, but can’t retain the tricky words beyond that (she also happens to be a brilliant dancer and gymnast, but I guess you don’t value this so much). Or what about another friend, whose son is brilliant both at sport and at model making, but struggles with these tests? Is it right that he’s now worrying (at eleven) about what sort of job he’ll get later? Is it right that my son is putting such pressure on himself at such a tender age?
Personally I struggle to answer much of your English paper. I don’t understand the grammar questions. I have no idea what a fronted adverbial is, for example. It’s odd, because I’m not totally daft, and incidentally I make my living through writing. I know that my editor won’t be looking for how I’ve used semi-colons. She’ll hope to be swept along by my passion and imagination and the world I’ve painted with words, the atmosphere I’ve created. The way I’ve built to climatic action. The way the story unfolds. She’ll be hoping I’ve taken risks, even if they don’t all pay off. That’s what she’s paying me for, after all. Shouldn’t we be encouraging our children to do likewise, to live and breathe language, to take risks boldly rather than learn what a fronted adverbial is, or identify the ‘passive voice’ in a dull passage of writing? ‘Everyone gets scared about the spelling - they’re scared of spelling words wrong, so they just don’t use tricky words.’ So says my son.
Even if you don’t make a living by writing (I’m aware you think that arts subjects ‘limit’ people, Nicky), being able to argue a point and express yourself in written and verbal form is undeniably useful across all sectors - and I don’t believe you’ll get the sack if you can’t identify a preposition in an email. Business leaders value employees that can approach problems from a different angle, those capable of independent thought - rather than those that can merely memorise a bunch of facts. I know this because I’ve also worked in corporate training. Did you know that countless companies (banks, insurance companies and the like) employ creative types (like me) to teach grown-ups how to think deeper, to work in teams more effectively, to listen better, to empathise with others, to work through difficult situations? These are skills for life, whatever your profession. This is the work I see happening in a playful way in our lovely primary school, and it is in direct opposition to your approach to education.
Maybe you still think teachers are simply being ‘negative.’ Maybe you don’t care that they are leaving the profession in droves in despair at this sterile, joyless way of cramming facts into young children. Maybe you think all these worried parents are overreacting. I received a government response from a petition I signed against the new testing regime. One section began ‘The government makes no apology for setting high aspirations for all children...”
Do you however make an apology for your policies affecting the mental health and wellbeing of our children? For children deciding they are ‘failures’ at six or eleven? For children deciding that only one sort of narrow intelligence is good enough? For children who have previously loved school becoming bored, anxious and disengaged? For young children becoming so stressed that their sleep is affected?
I think perhaps you should.
Yours sincerely
Rachel Smith