THE re-introduction of national tests for primary school pupils would amount to a "betrayal" of recent curriculum reforms, the country's biggest teaching union has warned.

 

Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of the EIS, issued an outspoken warning to the Scottish Government after it emerged ministers were considering a return to standardised testing in primary schools more than a decade after it was scrapped.

He said testing was a "failed approach from the past" and a betrayal of the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), which is based on the development of problem solving skills in pupils rather than rote learning.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon yesterday refused to rule out a return to testing as part of a new "national performance framework" for schools.

She said details would be unveiled "very soon" but, speaking during First Minister's Questions, acknowledged there was a lack of information about primary school performance compared with secondary schools and promised improvements to the system.

A system of standard tests for five- to 14-year-olds was scrapped in 2003 by Labour's then education minister, Peter Peacock.

The decision followed complaints that teachers were "teaching to the tests" at the expense of giving pupils a broader education.

Local councils were also frustrated that the standard tests allowed league tables to be drawn up.

At present, local education authorities have their own separate systems for measuring primary pupils' progress.

Mr Flanagan said CfE, which has been introduced over the past decade, was "an explicit rejection of the shallow testing, target setting, league table approach".

He added: "The international evidence does not support the notion that testing pupils improves standards, quite the opposite, and, frankly, it would be a betrayal of CfE, and all the effort that teachers have made to introduce this much praised reform, if the Scottish Government was to revert to a failed approach from the past."

He voiced concern the union had not been consulted on the possible move, warning ministers: "If the Scottish Government is considering change it should be talking to us about it."

Ms Sturgeon was challenged to bring back standard tests by Scots Tory leader Ruth Davidson, who claimed the government had "no clear idea" of the quality of primary education in different parts of the country.

The First Minister told her: "I openly acknowledge that while we do have, through exam passes, a wealth of data about the performance of secondary-school pupils, we do not have that same data on primary-school pupils.

"I'm not going to simply give Ruth Davidson a yes or a no answer, to jump to the decisions before we have properly considered what the right thing to do is.

"We do need a new national performance framework, but we do need to make sure that the data we're collecting and the way we do that is right, proportionate and sensible.

"We're considering these issues at the moment and I look forward, and the Education Secretary looks forward, to updating Parliament very soon on the the direction in which we want to go."

Recent official figures showed standards of literacy in Scottish primary and secondary schools are falling.

The Scottish Survey of Literacy found performance in reading dropped in primary schools between 2012 and 2014, as well as in the second year of secondary school.

Last year, the same survey found Scottish primary schools had experienced a dramatic decline in standards of numeracy.

Angela Constance, the Education Secretary, this week provoked anger from the EIS after urging teachers to do more to improve pupils' basic skills.

Speaking after First Minister's Questions, Ms Davidson said: "It's no wonder the Scottish Government doesn't know what to do, because it doesn't know what's going on.

"And while I'm glad the First Minister says she is listening, what we really need now is action.

"We need a new system of primary testing, exactly like Denmark and Ontario, whose approaches the Scottish Government are studying.

"The best education systems in the world test children, gather data and benchmark for success.

"The SNP now has to ask itself why it hasn't brought that in for Scotland after eight years in charge."

She added: "This isn't about making snap judgements on children at an early age, it's about ensuring we know which schools need help to improve, and which ones are leading the way."