New testing regime to be imposed on British schoolchildren
British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced a consultation paper on proposals for a new testing regime for five- and eleven-year-olds in England. ● The new consultation detailed by the Liberal Democrat leader follows the announcement this June of the new curriculum to be implemented from September 2014. The tests are designed to ensure that the rote learning, memorisation of spelling lists and times tables by heart and emphasis on “facts and rules” approach to teaching is enshrined from the moment a child starts primary school. ● Early years and preschool teachers are told that their sole role is to make young children “school ready”, while primary teachers have the task of ensuring that 11-year-olds are “secondary school ready”. ● Behind these empty, meaningless and deeply uninspiring phrases lay plans to rip the heart out of childhood teaching. All positive and progressive approaches to teaching based on producing well-rounded children who are able to respond critically to the world around them, develop problem-solving skills, independence and emotional well-being—already severely undermined over the past two decades—are to be ruled out.
John Pilger: How we are impoverished, gentrified and silenced - and what to do about it