Tests 'damaging pupil confidence'

Teachers want more flexibility, the ATL union says

The "over-testing" of England's pupils is "damaging the confidence" of less able children, a teaching union said.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said staff had to "teach to the test, against their professional judgement" to prevent this.

But its study of 50 schools found that national literacy and numeracy strategies, introduced in the late 1990s, had raised standards.

The government said tests were "integral" to improving education.

'Taken away'

The ATL, which conducted 188 interviews with school staff, said teachers were complaining that testing of seven, 11 and 14-year-olds had "gone too far".

Its report - Coming Full Circle - said: "Increasingly the performance of teachers was being judged according to their ability to enable pupils to meet attainment targets."

Recent government initiatives have stressed the need for more "creativity" in the classroom.

But ATL general secretary Mary Bousted said reforms were "putting back into teaching what had been taken away by the imposition of narrow and prescriptive literacy and numeracy strategies".

The survey, which compared teachers' views of the regimes operating in schools in 1992-94 and 2003-05, said there had been a "dramatic increase in whole-class teaching" since Labour's 1997 election victory.

Meanwhile, the curriculum had moved from "activity-based" and "topic-centred" to a "subject-centred" one.

Children were more likely to sit in rows - rather than grouped around tables - than previously.

'Broad skills'

However, the changes to learning had "generally" been viewed positively, although the extra paperwork involved was regarded "very negatively".

The ATL, Britain's third-biggest teaching union, wants tests for under-16s to be abolished.

It says the national curriculum should be cut, to give children "entitlements" to broad skills, such as creativity and physical co-ordination, rather than specific knowledge.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said: "National tests are an integral part of effective teaching and learning, helping to identify pupils that need extra support as well as those with talents that need to be stretched.

"Children sit just three sets of national curriculum tests during their 11 years at school. Teachers are well accustomed to ensuring that their children know what to expect and can cope well with the tests."