Letter: A testing system
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Your headline '14-year-olds better at maths than science' (22 December) could hardly be more misleading. Pupils did better in last summer's pilot tests in maths simply because the maths tests were better devised than the science ones.
Whereas the maths tests sampled in a balanced way the new syllabus which had evolved relatively smoothly out of previous good practice, the science tests sampled more arbitrarily the new science syllabus which was revised nationally while teachers were introducing it to their classes, and, moreover, represented a marked difference in approach to previous classroom practice. At this school we look forward to next summer's maths tests with confidence, but to the science ones with trepidation, since we have no indication how much the testers will have learnt from the pilot.
The testing of national curriculum subjects across 10 levels is an ambitious and complicated undertaking that, whatever politicians for their own purposes may suggest to the contrary, will need some years of trial and error before it settles into forms which genuinely deserve the confidence of parents, pupils and teachers.
For this reason above all, headteachers are now campaigning for national curriculum tests in English and technology to have the status of pilots and for the summer results to be treated with the caution they deserve. At this stage, the priority for testing is the tests themselves, not the pupils.
Yours faithfully,
H. M. ROBERTS
Headteacher
The Cherwell School
Oxford
22 December
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments