28th May 2012 12:37
By Blue Tutors
SPAG test row
Teachers and ministers are once again at loggerheads over a plan to introduce SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) to the SATs testing that already takes place. Costing millions to administrate, teachers argue that the money would be far better spent elsewhere and that teachers should be left to assess the SPAG capabilities of their pupils without government interference.
Reporting on the BBC News Education pages on the 6th May 2012, Katherine Sellgren noted that the National Association of Head Teachers said the new tests were "a waste of taxpayers' money".
Teachers are not, it seems, arguing about the importance of SPAG - the ministers claim too little attention has been paid to it in recent years - but are disputing the benefits of a centralized test. Tony Draper, a head teacher from Milton Keynes claims that the test will lead to ‘further narrowing of the curriculum, teaching to the test and increased misery for our year 6 pupils already sick of a diet of practise SATs and drills.’
It seems our government just cannot trust our teachers to do a decent job but keeps trying to increase the requirements on them while expecting standards to rise. Not sure who is ‘doing the math’ here but it doesn’t seem to make sense to me.