Mick Brookes, General Secretary NAHT comments as follows:
"NAHT welcomes the innovative thinking behind the announcement by Michael Gove (Sunday 14th June) that SAT testing could be delayed until the start of Y7.
This move would meet one of our objectives, that children in Y6 should experience their best Primary year with a curriculum that is broad, balanced and exciting.
It also recognises the fact that parents are already informed about their child's progress, in the annual report, by the teacher's assessment of their achievements. The SAT results arrive too late to be of use for this purpose and they are not sufficiently accurate at school and pupil level.
We look forward to discussing this proposal in depth with the Shadow Secretary of State.
We remain concerned about the conversion of tests into league tables whenever they are produced, this remains an issue. It must also be agreed that inspectors will refer to the context and self evaluation assessment of individual schools."
