Turning the Tables
The
announcement by the Schools Minister, Nick Gibbs, that some 290 schools are
about to trial new on-screen tables tests for 7 and 8 year olds is just another
example of the State getting involved in areas where it doesn’t belong. The accompanying comment that the tests will “help
teachers identify those pupils who require extra support” is patronizing at
best and once again shows that the government does not trust teachers to do
their job, even in this most fundamental way.
His comments have
already received a predictable response from teaching unions and from the
Minister’s acolytes. Mark Lehain, a strong advocate for regular national
testing, has already given his support, labeling anyone who might deign to
disagree as ‘the usual suspects’ who previously
‘have decried the introduction of what
they see as another infringement on childhood innocence and teachers’ freedom’.
Apart from the sneer,
the issue is not one of freedoms or raising standards or the value of teaching
times tables; it is about the role of the state in education as is clear when
he goes on to note that the test ‘should
also be stress-free for kids: it won’t be used to judge them or their school,
and will provide information that will be really powerful for all those who are
involved in education.’
Really? Try telling
that to teachers who for too long now have been held to account by such data
accumulation, even when the process is patently flawed. How long before it is
used to pass judgment? Who is taking bets?
The question is not
about learning tables. Most, (I hope all) teachers believe children should
learn their tables, as the benefits are undisputed. It should be an implicit
part of mathematics. Tables charts,
table trains were always the norm in primary schools, most using stars on a chart to signify progress with
children supporting each other through the journey. Schools were given the
responsibility to ensure children learned their tables and took their progress charts
with them, year on year, so that in time, depending on their level of readiness,
almost all children acquired the requisite knowledge.
The joy of learning
tables and having teachers who introduced the ideas of number or even, as in my
case, simple things, like the sum of any
numbers multiplied by 9 always equal nine (9×3 -= 27, 2+9 etc). Some of us were
lucky in got to test the methods the Jewish
Mathematician Jakow Trachtenberg devised while he
was in a German concentration camp. Of all the rote learning that goes on in
school, nothing is more useful in life, or more regularly used, as tables, and
the ability to be able to make quick and accurate computations is something almost
every child is capable of.
However, I believe
every school does so already. Moreover the teachers would argue that they
already know who needs support and don’t need another measure that can in the
future, be used against them. By gathering data the nature of the test is
changed, for the teachers and schools, and becomes yet another pressure point.
The issue is with the
belief that national benchmarking is the way forward or is merely a giant
political straitjacket that ties teachers down to yet another measure. As Mark
Lehain wrote in an earlier article defending the 11+,
‘ . . . If we took SATs away there would be no formal
testing between Year Two and Year Eleven – so how could we reliably ensure that
children are actually on track and which schools are effective?
How indeed. Possibly by the same methods we used before
the introduction of centralized testing. After all, teachers have always been
expected to teach tables and were accountable in their own schools for doing so.
We should trust the professionalism of
our teachers and stop interfering. The dependence of national data gathering is
what really undermines the morale of teachers and the belief that ‘having a national check means every single
child will be assessed in the same way’ is a good thing when in reality, it
is anything but! In many countries, governments
are now devolving more power to teachers, learning to trust their judgment and
realizing the accumulation of screeds of national data may be useful for
turning children into algorithms, but actually just distract from learning. To
do that, of course, we need to raise the standard of teaching and invest more
in recruiting the most committed and able people into the profession. Sadly,
that, as the Minister knows, costs rather more money.
