NAHT Votes 'Yes' to Ballot for Boycott of SATs

NAHT members have voted overwhelmingly in favour of balloting to join the NUT in a boycott of the Key Stage 2 SATs tests in 2010.

After a thorough debate 94% of members agreed that there should be a vote on whether to to refuse to administer the tests to Year 6 pupils next year.

Earlier in the afternoon Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State, spoke to delegates at the Annual Conference in Brighton, praising the work of School Leaders, but asserting that there will continue to be an independently administered system of assessment in Schools for the foreseeable future. He asked NAHT to work with him constructively to develop an effective and professional system.  Members were keen to take part in moving forward constructively but agreed almost unanimously that a boycott may be necessary should SATs proceed in their present form next year.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Practically everybody from the education establishment looked at these tests and saw that they narrowed the curriculum. It's a shallow measure.

"So it will be uncluttered, it'll be proper education, and what we want is sharper and more accurate information to go to our colleagues in the secondary sector so that the transition from Year 6 to Year 7 can be seamless."

Mr Brookes said the union's letter - for parents of Year 5 children who are due to take the tests next year - would go out "fairly soon".

To hear the radio interview link to the BBC Radio 4 web site

Press Statement

Mick Brookes, General Secretary of NAHT gave the following statement to the press.

'The NAHT's historic vote to end the tyranny of testing will mean that;

• Year 5 children will for the first time in fifteen years have a final year of education in their Primary schools that is not disrupted by SATs;

• Inspectors and other agents of accountability will have to consider the work that is actually going on in schools, rather than a set of spurious results;

• Y7 teachers will have timely and accurate information to help the smooth transition of children between phases;

• Schools will no longer be exposed to the humiliation of League Table misrepresentation.

NAHT will strive to work with colleagues in other unions and the DCSF to find a way forward that enables the benefits described above to be enjoyed by children and their schools without resort to direct action.

However, if that agreement cannot be found, we will go to our national membership, in England, to vote for a boycott of SATs in May 2010.

Members of the NAHT would like to thank colleagues in the NUT for their strong support on this issue.

The full detail of the motion passed at the conference is below:

Motion 2

Conference welcomes the joint NAHT/NUT campaign and endorses the joint statement on testing and assessment.

Conference believes these proposals represent the future of assessment in primary schools.

Whilst welcoming the decision to remove National Curriculum testing at Key Stage 3, Conference rejects the government’s argument for maintaining them in primary schools.

Conference calls on the Executive/National Council to broaden the joint campaign to secure the end of a testing regime which is not fit for purpose.

Conference recognizes that the strategies deployed to date, including lobbying, letters to MPs, parents’ questionnaires and local campaigning, provide a positive base for attracting widespread support.

Conference asserts, therefore, that unless the government sees fit to respond to overwhelming evidence for ending the statutory tests at Key Stages 1 and 2,

joint action will need to be taken to prevent their continuation.

Conference instructs the Executive/National Council to:

1. step up the joint campaign to halt KS1/KS2 statutory testing;

2. seek the support of all the unions, including those in the TUC, for the campaign;

3. seek support from the widest possible range of organisations, including parents, governors and parliamentary parties;

4. once all other reasonable avenues have been exhausted, ballot all relevant members for joint action to boycott the Key Stages 1 and 2 statutory tests, for the academic year 2009-2010, if the government refuses to remove them.