Am I right or do I not really care about 'the kids'?

[Feebeela]

I was speaking to an executive head this evening of a local primary academy and I would appreciate your thoughts on our conversation.

We were talking about how there is so much pressure on schools and UKS2 chn because of the SATS. Her school is in a deprived area with a transient community, lots of EAL etc. From Y5 they run a Saturday school and boosters starting from 8am during the week. I must have looked horrified because she said that we need to make sure that these kids leave school able to read and write according to government targets and if it means more time in school then so be it. I replied that surely the demands of the curriculum are such that chn are having to learn at a much younger age than 10-20 years ago and it's detrimental to measure against such stretch goals. After all, the demands are higher but chn aren't getting any cleverer. This head shrugged and disagreed.

Her argument is that if we want children to succeed, we need to push them otherwise, they end up in the bottom set of secondary school in our (deprived) area and get mixed up in gangs, knives, drugs etc and have lesser life chances than chn from 'middle class' homes where they are supported in every way. Saturday schools, 8am boosters are all for the kids and by disagreeing I was in the wrong.

When did education get so narrow that it's only about English and Maths tests? Am I missing something? Am I a bad teacher because I disagree? I feel that we are turning these very chn off of school by pushing them so hard, so young. If we cram like this, do they grow to love learning or are they just wrung out by Y7 or 8?

I totally agree with you. As would, I expect a large swathe of the teaching profession. Hence the enormous teaching shortage.

It’s not about pay. It’s about forcing children to do things which are fundamentally too hard or require so much grilling as to be damaging. Primary education should be about learning to interact, be curious, read and add up. The writing expectations are madness.
I’m not currently teaching, in large part because I just think the whole system is BS. I would be a nightmare... I would tell children ‘none of this matters. Most of these grammar concepts are made up. You are worth more than this. Screw the booster sessions, let’s do a wonderful piece of artwork, do some Tudor baking and read a gripping story.’