25th June 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
This week the Department for Education has confirmed that although students will begin studying the new national curriculum in 2014, they will be tested on the old one in 2015. The problem relates to the new SATS which test 11 year olds on English and Maths. Although the curriculum will change next year, the SAT tests will not be ready in time for students to take them in 2015. This means that current year 4 students will be taught one curriculum and tested on another.
The revelation came after correspondence between the Department for Education and the teacher blogger Michael Tidd was made public. In an email, the Department for Education said that “The tests must reflect the current statutory curriculum only, I can confirm that we cannot use anything from the draft curriculum as a basis for test content until 2016 at the earliest”. This issue will affect more than half a million students, who are about to be taught the new curriculum in the next academic year, but tested according to the old curriculum.
Schools have raised numerous concerns about the plans for introducing the new curriculum, and have pointed out that some key topics that will appear on the old SAT test are not covered in nearly as much detail in the new curriculum. In the case of the Maths test, subjects including data handling and probability are given far more weight in the old curriculum. This means that pupils studying the new curriculum would struggle to answer these questions when taking the old exam. It is likely that schools will now campaign to keep teaching the old curriculum until the new tests are ready to be introduced.