School league tables are not the answer

8:26pm Thursday 15th May 2008

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SATS testing has been under scrutiny in the media in the wake of the report of a House of Commons' committee in the week that pupils countrywide have been taking the tests.

SATS (Standard Assessment Tests) are given to children at the end of years 2, 6 and 9.

They are intended to show children's progress compared with other children born in the same month. They are a useful tool, it can be convincingly argued, for teachers and other education professionals to judge the efficacy of their teaching and the abilities of the children they teach.

The problem that the MPs have identified is that the results of these tests are now being fed into league tables that invite comparison between schools and give rise to parental dissatisfaction with schools that do not appear to them to be doing well.

High-achieving, aspirational parents want high-achieving, aspirational children and will move heaven and earth to get their children into schools that these league tables indicate to them will deliver for their children.

The SATS results become important to schools not just for what they tell the school about their pupils' progress any more, but because the schools know they will struggle to attract quality pupils, or worse, any pupils, if they are perceived to be less than successful.

The fear expressed by the Commons' Committee and endorsed by teachers' professional bodies is that the teaching of the curriculum can be neglected in the quest to improve their position in the league tables.

There are so many ingredients that go to make a good school, many of which are incapable of measurement.

Drilling students to satisfy the requirements of a testing regime is not one of them.

Developing whatever raw material arrives at the school so that they reach their full potential is.

A school whose catchment area provides it with motivated, high-achieving families with similar children finds league table success an easier prize than does a school in a less-blessed area.

But the latter school may well be going that extra mile for its children without reaping the league table benefit.

My four children are now nearly all through their schooling years and I have learned far more about the schools they have attended from getting involved and meeting their teachers than could ever be gleaned from the cold and almost meaningless information to be gleaned from a league table.