SAT Protest
The petition was signed by 40,000 people.
16:26 03 May 2016
Parents of schoolchildren to stage strike action over SATs (Standard Assessment Tests) for six and seven-year-olds, claiming that children are “over-tested and overworked.”
A petition started by the Let Our Kids Be Kids campaign is calling on teachers to boycott SATS test for children at the end of Year 2, claiming that the focus of tests has left children “over-tested, overworked and in a school system that places more importance on test results and league tables than children’s happiness and joy of learning.”
The petition said: “We're a group of Year 2 parents who've had enough... enough of endless testing, enough of teachers not being trusted to teach, enough of an Ofsted driven, dull, dry curriculum aimed solely at passing National Curriculum Tests (SATs).
“We want our kids to be kids again and enjoy learning for learning's sake not for Ofsted results or league table figures. Bring back the creativity and the fun - say goodbye to repetition and boredom!”
It added that six and seven-year-olds were not expected to sit “a whole week’s worth of exams” focused on comprehension and arithmetic.
“Outdoor learning has decreased, childhood anxiety has increased, games have been replaced with grammar, playing with punctuation,"
Addressing Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, the campaign said: "Please take a long, hard look at this. "Do you want your legacy to be the confident cancellation of unneeded and unnecessary SATs, showing you are listening to your electorate and the teachers you claim to support ... or the overseeing of a shambolic testing regime desperately unwanted by millions of people to the point that this country saw its first open parent revolt?
"You have the power to stop these tests. NOW. Our children, our teachers and our schools deserve better than this."
Meanwhile, Ms Morgan called the campaign “damaging.”
She said: "To those who say we should let our children be creative, imaginative, and happy - of course I agree, both as a parent and as the Education Secretary.
"But I would ask them this: how creative can a child be if they struggle to understand the words on the page in front of them? They certainly can't enjoy them”.