A petition to boycott SATS exams has gathered other 21,000 signatures from parents who have ‘had enough’ of the testing.
On 3rd May parents and teachers across the United Kingdom are organising a ‘kids strike’ to remove their children from schools where they are due to sit the Key Stage 1 and 2 exams.
By boycotting the schools for one day, parents are asking government officials to ‘let our kids be kids’ and remove the current system of ‘endless’ SATs testing.
The official Facebook page of the ‘Let Kids Be Kids’ campaign says; ‘On 3rd May we want you to show the government that you want a boycott of the Year 2 SATS and a return to teacher based assessment.’
‘Ending Year 2 SATS is a step towards returning to a curriculum of teacher led joy and wonder rather than repetitious grammar and mathematical reasoning.’
The petition, which was first posted on 38degrees.org only three weeks ago, has been addressed to the government’s Education Secretary Nicky Morgan by a group of Year 2 parents.
The petition says; ‘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!’
Comments on the post show the overwhelming support for the movement, with Debra K saying; ‘I'm a parent of a Year 4 child and I have no intention of letting him sit SATS in Year 6 when the time comes. I know from having older children that the SATS have no impact on future learning and just ruin the last year of primary school. I think this petition should be extended to all primary parents who want to say no to the relentless and meaningless testing of our children. ‘
The examinations for 6-7 year olds are not actually due to take place on 3 May, but the date for the boycott was set in advance – and the children’s exams will take place some time that month.
Questions around the difficulty of new SAT papers have been raised for a while, after many parents took to social media to show their disapproval of practice papers. Then, on 29th March, the National Union of Teachers agreed to consider a vote on the future of primary exams at the NUT conference in Brighton.
