Entire class to boycott Sats exams as parents protest against ‘constant testing’

'I think when something is so wrong we need to stand up and say so,' says parent

An entire class of six and seven-year-olds will be withdrawn from the Sats exams this month.

Fifteen parents of children in a Year 2 class at Bealings School, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, are boycotting the statutory exams, which are due to start next week, over concerns about testing.

The school’s chair of governors told campaigners that he would “not stand in the way” of the parents’ protest.

It comes after Labour pledged to scrap the controversial Sats exams in English primary schools. Jeremy Corbyn said the “regime of extreme pressure testing” would be abolished amid reports of children crying, vomiting and having nightmares.

Lavinia Musolino, a parent at Bealings School, said: “We understand that the headteacher has a legal obligation to submit the tests and to make sure the children are doing them, but as parents our opinion overrides that and, frankly, so it should.”

Hetty Chance, another parent at the school who plans to withdraw her child from the tests, said: “My message to the government would be that we as parents want high standards.

"We want our children to have a broad, rich and enjoyable time at school and it is being spoilt by this constant testing.

“I hope that other people will hear about what we are doing and start the conversation with their headteacher. I think when something is so wrong we need to stand up and say so.”

Last month, members of the National Education Union (NEU) backed plans for a possible boycott of all high stakes tests in primary school in England next year.

The union argues that summative tests in primary schools, including Sats exams, are “educationally flawed” and “increase stress” for pupils.

Rick Gillingham, chair of governors at Bealings School, said: “It seems to me that the whole landscape around Sats has changed in the public perception.

“As a school we’re certainly not going to stand in the way of that and it fits in, to some degree, with our ethos that overtesting is certainly something we wouldn’t go along with.”

Campaign groups Let Our Kids Be Kids and Rescue Our Schools said: “The Department for Education continues to ignore the evidence that the system is broken and until headteachers come together to challenge the culture of high stakes testing, parents understandably feel they have to make a stand - not just for their own children but for children all over the country who are suffering.”

In 2017, the government announced that statutory Sats exams for six and seven-year-olds would be phased out and replaced with a baseline assessment in reception beginning in 2020.

Despite calls for Sats exams for 10- and 11-year-olds to also be abolished, the Department for Education (DfE) has decided to keep them in place. The exams are used to hold schools to account, rather than individual pupils.

Last month, schools standards minister Nick Gibb said Sats had been “pivotal” in raising standards in children’s reading and maths, adding that abolishing the exams would be a “retrograde step”.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Key stage 1 assessments help teachers to evaluate where pupils are at the end of year 2. They form the starting point for the current primary progress measure.

“These assessments should not be stressful for pupils. All over the world, schools guide children through assessments without them feeling pressured. This is how it should be.

“Tests over the course of a child’s education help us to understand how well schools are supporting children, and we trust teachers to administer them in an appropriate way.”