RUNNING STRAP

Another school
is possible
Alternatives to SATs and testing
£1 donation ● an Anti SATs Alliance publication
Another school is possible 1
IN THIS ISSUE

A modest proposal
Paul Vernell 3

Lessons from over the dyke

Mary Compton 4

Do SATs tell the truth about achievement?

Terry Wrigley 6

A platform for the teaching of English

Alan Gibbons 8

Another school is possible

Nick Grant intervews Bob Peterson 11

Personalised learning as social selection

Hatcher 16

Assessment for learning

Lisa Hayes 19

Government fails 7 year olds

Jane Nellist 20

A question of pedagogy
Paul Phillips and Joel Mcilven 22

2 Another school is possible

 THE TSUNAMI

A very modest proposal

Paul Vernell, Head of English at Filton High School,

South Gloucestershire, makes a suggestion

Ground down by SATs and targets, shocked and

angered by New Labour’s attacks on teacher
pensions and seething at the continuing war in
Iraq, the Tsunami disaster forced me, more than
any other event in the 16 years I have been
teaching, to consider: what is education’s purpose
in a world where we can spend trillions on
sending people to far away planets but we can’t
solve issues like early warning systems for tidal
waves and the logistics of aid?
In fact so shocked, I wondered if the young
people we teach, the global citizens of tomorrow,
could come up with ideas for dealing with the
devastating consequences of events in South east
Asia. Could the education we offer them provide
the tools to begin to explore and identify answers
to the situation we currently face? Not a rehashed
vocationalism but a truly interesting and relevant
learning experience that is situated in the world.
In short can young people sketch another world
in which natural catastrophes are not
exacerbated by poverty, third world debt,
unemployment and displacement?
So, in a packed Friday briefing, when the
Head was reminding us of litter problems, I put
forward a modest proposal. Would it not be a
good idea to harness the solidarity, Children care and are yearning to act
internationalism and curiosity generated by the
Tsunami disaster? Spending a week, perhaps more ideas poured forth.
working alongside NGOs such as Oxfam, our Each day of the week will focus on one year
students should have the chance to analyse and group. After showing a collated video of scenes
explore the problems and the possible solutions from the area and an assembly provided by the
to the situation we were witnessing on our Christian Aid website, a series of questions will
screens each night. Not a week of regurgitating then be shown followed by a starter on problem
tired facts but a week when every curriculum area solving skills Then off to lessons. And it doesn’t
would offer each year group from 7-11 a real matter what lesson they are in, students will
context and purpose for the skills we teach. explore the big questions thrown up. The last
Yes, came the answer and I thought I heard a period of the day will be a whole year group
collective sigh of relief. The Head of Maths wants plenary sharing their solutions to the questions
to look at the speed of waves and the raised at the beginning of the day.
effectiveness of early warning systems, the Design The school council has proposed that the final
and Technology teachers want to look at the day be a non uniform day with students
constructing new houses, in English we will look contributing their money to the DEC fund.
at discursive and argumentative writing around So we’re off! And the theme for the week? Is
the theme of debt: relief or abolition, and many another world possible?
Another school is possible 3
WALES
Lessons from
over the dyke
Mary Compton, President of the NUT,
writes how the Welsh Assembly’s abolition of
KS1 SATs has improved education
t an NUT meeting in Radnor shortley
A after the Tory government introduced
SATs, an experienced primary school
teacher described how she was sitting
with her Year 2 class, wading through
preparation for the forthcoming tests when one
of the children looked out of the window and
noticed that a sheep in the field outside was in the
process of giving birth.
Her first reaction to this was to think, ‘We
haven’t got time for this, the SATs are in a few
weeks, we’ve got to get on.’ Almost immediately,
however, her better instincts as a teacher took
hold of her and asking herself what education was
after all about she took the whole class outside to
watch the lamb being born.
I am aware that by starting an article about
developments in Wales with a story about sheep I
am in danger of reinforcing ignorant stereotypes
of life on the other side of Offa’s Dyke. However,
what I hope this story illustrates is the dilemma
teachers face between trusting their own judge-
ment and submitting to the straitjackets imposed
on them by a succession of control-mad govern-
ments. The fact that one of the latest primary doc-
uments issuing from Whitehall cynically tacks the
word ‘enjoyment’ onto the policy—it will surely be
only a matter of time before we are instructed to
provide enjoyment for five per cent of teaching
time—only makes the teacher’s confinement more
painful. However, I am pleased to say that the
4 Another school is possible
Welsh Assembly has gone some way towards
releasing teachers from their straitjackets—let us
say that at least we no longer have our arms tied
behind our backs.
Even before the Welsh Assembly came into
being, there has been a history in Wales of more
progressive educational thinking and practice. For
example, there are very few opted out schools in
Wales. And since the inception of the assembly it
has so far resisted most of the excesses of White-
hall policy. For example, as yet there are no plans
for academies or specialist schools.
Estyn is marginally more enlightened than
OFSTED and has never made the kind of abrasive
statements about teachers which were continually
emenating fron Woodhead. The Assembly fought
a rearguard action against the linking of teacher
performance to pay and has not embraced the
idea of teaching assistants taking whole classes
with any enthusiasm. But more importantly for
the purposes of this article, there are no primary
school league tables and Key Stage 1 SATs were
abolished several years ago.
Assessment
However, the most significant development of all
has been the establishment of the Daugherty
review of assessment in Wales, which has recom-
mended the abolition of all SATs and their
replacement by a system of teacher assessment at
the end of Key Stages 2 and 3, and the introduc-

tion of some testing in Year 5 for the purposes of
improving children’s learning. Of course this is a
great leap forward for Wales and one all the more
significant since we have tried the English model
of SATs and found them seriously wanting.
Daugherty took evidence from all interested
parties—parents, teachers, pupils, academics and
teacher unions. We therefore join Scotland to
leave England totally isolated in its adherence to
SATs. Many countries are looking at what is going
on in England and, impressed by England’s appar-
ently good showing in the PISA study of achieve-
ment at 14, are thinking of introducing similar
systems themselves. The Daugherty report will be
an invaluable help in combatting these misguided
plans.
Of course not everything in the Welsh valleys is
green. Funding is appallingly low and many
schools are struggling with deficit budgets.
Although the Assembly was not keen on some of
the workload reforms, I have no doubt that cash-
strapped heads will be using unqualified staff to
‘teach’ just as their colleagues in England are
doing. We are still inspected and our power and
WALES
confidence to innovate and be creative suffers as a Can Wales
result. We do not yet know what the Year 5 tests show England
are going to be like and we must be vigilant that the way
they are not just a new Welsh form of SATs. forward?
And we also suffer from the fact that many
young teachers know nothing but SATs and are
nervous at the idea of managing without them. It
is almost like our hands have been tied behind
our backs for so long that our muscles are starting
to whither away and now that we are almost free
again we are going to need some intensive and
sometimes painful phisiotherapy to get them
working again. But I have no doubt that the teach-
ers of Wales will rise to the challenge and that the
country which has traditionally such respect for
education and teachers will not have reason to be
disappointed in them.
Offas Dyke was built by an English king to keep
the barbarous Welsh hoards from its land. Well
now we in Wales have managed to repell the Eng-
lish idea of punishing and deadening testing. Per-
haps it is time for the barbarians on the English
side of the border to take some lessons in civilisa-
tion from this side of the Dyke.
Another school is possible 5
TESTING THE SATS
Do SATs tell the
truth about
achievement?
Terry Wrigley, lecturer in school
development at the University of Edinburgh
asks the fundamental question
he answer appears to be—the whole
T truth, twice the truth, maybe three
times the truth. The government con-
stantly uses rising SATs scores in claims
that their policies are working, but
recent research raises serious questions about the
SATs can be trusted. The British Educational
Research Journal (BERJ) is probably the highest
ranking educational research journal, and articles
that appear in it are rigorously checked by other
experts before being published. Yet in the last two
years, it has published some damning studies
which suggest that the SATs just cannot be
trusted.
The National Numeracy Strategy has forced
teachers to teach Maths in a particular way, with a
big emphasis on whole-class practice of mental
arithmetic. It costs £400,000,000, yet according to
researchers it has brought about only two months
progress—and may have led to a deterioration in
mathemetical skills other than calculation.
Professor Margaret Brown and her colleagus at
King’s College, University of London, point out
that two thirds of the schools in their sample
showed progress, but in a third of the schools
results went down. They also showed that results
got worse for the low attaining pupils, probably
because teachers were now focussing on the aver-
age child in the class and no longer paying atten-
tion to their needs. The gap got bigger between
the lowest attaining pupils and the rest. There was
6 Another school is possible
also very little improvement for the most advances
pupils in the class.
Some high attainers in this case study also expressed
to us their frustration at their progress being held
back by the whole class teaching emphasis, which
tends to be pitched at the needs of the middle
group. (BERJ, October 2003, p662)
The research cast doubt on government claims
that their strategy has worked miracles. A press
release in March 2003 claimed:
Recent improvements in pupils’ achievements in lit-
eracy and numeracy have been substantial. 73 per
cent of 11 year olds achieved at least level 4 in Maths
in 2002—a 14 point increase since 1998.
The researchers have spotted that the govern-
ment spin doctors chose 1998 as their base line (a
very poor year), and if they had chosen 1999, just
before the strategy was introduced, the improve-
ment would have been only 4 per cent. They also
state that improved SATs scores are largely the
result of careful coaching for the test.
One of the most expert research units for
assessment results is the CEM at the University of
Durham. In a report of August 2004 (BERJ,
pp477-494), Professor Peter Tymms asks, ‘Are
standards rising in English primary schools?’
He carefully compares the data from SATs with

eleven other sources of data, including govern-
ment departments and universities. These alterna-
tive data sources involved well-established tests (as
opposed to the SATs which keep changing), and a
very large sample (nearly half a million pupils). He
concludes that, according to the alternative data,
the proportion attaining a level 4 in reading at the
end of primary school should have risen from 48
per cent (1995) to 58 per cent (2000), rather than
the 75 per cent shown by the SATs. (After 2000,
little change has occurred in results).
Simple questions of fact
When the SATs were tried out on pupils in North-
ern Ireland, who have a different system of educa-
tion and had not been coached for the SATs, the
pupils also said they were getting easier.
Mary Hilton (University of Cambridge) also
found that the tests were being made easier.
There was a switch from more subtle questions
involving inference or deduction1 to simple ques-
tions of fact. The most dramatic year-on-year
improvement in SATs scores happened because
of a shift from a thoughtful personal account of a
writer’s childhood to a much simpler passage
about spiders. (Reading, 2001, no 1)
Altogether, it seems, the tests are being simpli-
fied so that the government can claim their poli-
cies are working. And teachers are getting better
at judging exactly what they need to teach so that
more children will pass the tests. But what is hap-
pening to educational standatds?
Inspectors have pointed to an increase in basic
excercised where children just practice rather
TESTING THE SATS
reading that has some meaning. They called these Government
‘holding activities’ which ‘occupied pupils but did figures just
not develop or consolidate their literacy skills’ and don’t add up
reduce interest and motivation. (National Literacy
Strategy: the Third Year, HMI 2001, www.ofsted.
gov.uk)
Some schools had abandoned independent
reading, which did not fit into the official pattern
of the Literacy Hour. Boys were responding badly
to one lesson in eight (even when the inspectors
were watching!) and the gap between boys and
girls was not closing. The curriculum was narrow-
ing, as teachers focused more and more on tests:
‘The development of enquiry skills in history and
Geography, and refining of technical skills in
practical subjects is being neglected’. The inspec-
tors suggest that teachers connect reading with
real knowledge in History and Science, for exam-
ple—which is just what many primary teachers
used to do before the government stopped it!
Terry Wrigley is a lecturer in school development at
the University of Edinburgh. He edits the journal
Improving Schools, and has written two books, The
Power to Learn (2000) and Schools of Hope (2003).
He has worked in education for over 30 years, as a
secondary school teacher, staff development
manager, inspector and university teacher.
Note
1 For example, reading between the lines;
understanding something the writer had hinted at
rather than directly stated; reaching a conclusion from
the writer’s evidence which hasn’t been fully spelt out.
Another school is possible 7
TEACHING ENGLISH
A platform for
the teaching
of English
Award winning writer Alan Gibbons is
coordinator of Authors Against the SATs. Here
he gives his vision of an alternative to testing
ometimes I wonder, if we were to
S
learn to talk or walk by means of some
Government-inspired strategy, would
we get there at all? If we went through
the prescribed stages of level one,
rock on your belly, level two, crawl, level three,
totter towards the couch, level four, stagger inde-
pendently, would we ever manage to boldly go
anywhere?
In the course of my career as a children’s
author and educational consultant I visit some 150
schools a year. I find a huge amount of common
ground when it comes to the teaching of English.
This broad agreement, needless to say, generally
runs counter to official Government policy.
The current regime in schools generally rests
upon three foundations:
● the testing regime
● Ofsted
● the National Literacy Strategy.
The testing regime
SAT results have been more or less static for
some years. In the early years of a testing regime,
teaching to the test can inflate test scores. You
learn to cram the children. This approach has
crushed the life out of English schools, subordi-
nating everything to the stultifying mantra: teach
to the test. But, after the initial rise in test scores,
any illusory progress soon fades like the smile on
the Cheshire cat.
8 Another school is possible
Ofsted
Though less draconian and punitive than in the
Woodhead years, Ofsted remains a ‘from above’
approach. There is still little attempt to work
with schools. Externally imposed league tables
and drives for standards continue to define its
operation.
The National Literacy Strategy
While I work with many creative and intelligent
people in the NLS, the strategy is still marked by
the conditions of its birth, the testing regime and
Ofsted. Liberated from those shackles it could
potentially develop into something much more
exciting and holistic.
A recent survey by the NLS in Surrey confirms
what many already know. Consider these two
damning statistics:
What percentage of level 3 pupils at Year 6 did
not move at all between KS2 2000 and KS3 2003
in English? 30 per cent.
What percentage of level 4 pupils at Y6 did not
move at all between KS2, 2000 and KS3, 2003 in
English? 19 per cent.
For a third of pupils at level 3 and a fifth of
pupils at level 4 to make no progress between
eleven and fourteen years old should set alarm
bells ringing and cast doubt on the effectiveness
of the Government’s approach. The evidence of
a desire for change is everywhere. Wales is drop-
ping the SATs. Scotland didn’t have them in the
TEACHING ENGLISH

Another school is possible 9

TEACHING ENGLISH
The Anti-SATs first place. The National Association for the
Alliance’s Teaching of English, Authors Against the SATs,
founding the Meetings with the Minister pamphlet and
conference the Times Educational Supplement have all
challenged the ‘test and table’campaign.There
needs to be a concerted effort to raise standards
through creativity and pedagogical freedom.
This is, after all, what exists in Finland, the
country which tops the OECD rankings for edu-
cational success. It might look something like
this.
A platform for literacy
1) Reading development
To develop a literate classroom the library should
be central. There should be a chartered librarian
in every High School administering a ring-fenced
book budget. The librarian should lead a team
interacting with small groups of children, linking
their reading to personal interest. The librarian
should have responsibility for the feeder primar-
ies in the locality. Children’s writing should be
prominently displayed throughout the school.
The teacher should regularly read aloud to the
class. Children should read silently in class for
pleasure and have time to browse. There should
be book weeks and author visits on a regular
basis. The Government should campaign nation-
ally for school bookshops.
2) Writing
There should be a balance of directed and free
writing with the accent on the child’s individuality
and creativity. Writing should be encouraged
throughout the curriculum, eroding the arbitrary
subject divisions. There should be a national mag-
azine for young writers, subsidised by Govern-
ment funds but not subject to the editorial control
of its agencies. There should be a pilot of ‘Inte-
grated English’ in which English, drama and the
arts would be taught as an integrated whole. One
survey showed that 33% of students had Drama as
their favourite subject but only 6% English. Could
10 Another school is possible
this have something to do with a stale diet of
Comprehensions?
3) Assessment
SATs and league tables should be abolished. Few
believe they serve any valid purpose. Just because
the SATs boycott didn’t materialise doesn’t mean
that SATs are in any way valued by teachers or chil-
dren. The tests should be replaced by moderated
teacher assessment with a minimum of paper work.
The watchword should be: minimise administra-
tion, maximise learning. Assessment of writing
should be by a portfolio of children’s work. There is
already such an experiment in Birmingham.
4) Inspection and advice
Ofsted should be abolished and replaced with a
new model, supporting and advising teachers. A
mark of goodwill might be for all inspectors to
teach a sample lesson to prove they are able prac-
titioners. Advisors should teach alongside teach-
ers in the classroom, not lecture to them at
INSET meetings.
Teacher training
This should be on a pedagogic, not a managerial
model. The ability to maintain the attention of a
class is more important than the ability to main-
tain a laminated folder of objectives and out-
comes. Children’s literature should be a central
module, as should the teaching of reading. The
teacher should be seen as an exemplary adult who
reads for pleasure and celebrates the accumula-
tion of knowledge. To achieve this, there should
be time set aside for the teacher’s own intellectual
development. You don’t get dynamic, inspira-
tional teachers in the classroom by driving them
to distraction through bureaucratic red tape.
Conclusion
The drive for standards has served only to drive
many good teachers out of the profession and to
drive children crazy with boredom. Working with
teachers and students to develop a curriculum
which they find stimulating could pay dividends.
A move in that direction is long overdue.
Alan Gibbons is a writer and independent
educational consultant. After twenty years as a teacher
at KS1, 2 and 3, Alan turned to writing full time. Twice
shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, twice shortlisted for
the Booktrust Teenage Prize, Alan has won the Blue
Peter Book Award and the Leicester and Angus Prizes.
Alan is a popular speaker at schools, libraries, colleges
and conferences. He speaks at 150 schools a year. He
has toured Spain, France, Cyprus, Northern Ireland and
Switzerland, and is due to visit Hong Kong and Taipei.
Alan is the coordinator of Authors Against the SATs. He
lives with his wife and four children in Liverpool where he
is a columnist for the local paper, the Liverpool Echo.

ANOTHER
SCHOOL IS
POSSIBLE
Ealing National Union of Teachers branch
secretary Nick Grant interviews American
activist Bob Peterson him about his work
What are the core ideas of the Rethinking
Schools organisation?
We advocate the reform of elementary and sec-
ondary public schools in the United States with an
emphasis on urban schools and issues of equity
and social justice. We stress a grassroots perspec-
tive combining theory and practice and linking
classroom issues to broader policy concerns. We
are an activist publication and encourage teach-
ers, parents, and students to become involved in
building quality public schools for all children.
What are the key aims of the RS organisation?
Rethinking Schools seeks to build a movement for
more equitable, just, and critical education for all
students. We understand that a key part in win-
ning the struggle for educational justice is the
linking of those struggles with broader social
movements. This linkage, however, should take
place not only in the general political arena where
teacher unions fight for socially just policies, but
in the very curriculum and structure of schooling
itself, where teachers and their organizations pro-
mote critical global justice pedagogy and create
structures that promote access and power to the
most disenfranchised sections of our society.
Rethinking Schools tries to promote these
kinds of activities through clear analysis of policy
issues, thoughtful descriptions of critical teaching
practices in all subject areas, reviews of progres-
sive resources, and reporting on organizing for
INTERVIEW
educational justice. We do this in our monthly
magazine, the books we’ve published and our web
site www.rethinkingschools.org
Recently we’ve initiated a program called
“From the World to our Classrooms” in collabora-
tion with the group Global Exchange. We’ve
organized curriculum tours of educators from the
United States to go and visit social justice activists
on the border of Mexico and the US so that teach-
ers can meet and learn first hand from workplace,
women’s, community and environmental activists.
On return to their schools teachers advocate soli-
darity policies within their union and create cur-
ricula to help teach about these matters.
How is your organisation structured?
Rethinking Schools started in 1986 from a study
circle of teacher and community activists. Many of
us had been active in the civil rights, anti-war, and
women’s movements and we wanted to bring the
same kind of critique and activism to work around
schools. We started small on my kitchen table with
a can of rubber cement and an old Apple IIe com-
puter. We’ve grown a lot in the last 18 years! We
are a “non-profit” independent organization that
is not affiliated to any trade union or political
party. We operate as a non-hierarchical organiza-
tion with no “executive director” and try to make
major decisions through consensus.
We are based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin but
have editors on both the east and west coast of the
Another school is possible 11
12 Another school is possible
Another school is possible 13
INTERVIEW
Above: testing U.S. We have 11 volunteer editors, a small staff of
in a US school. five people and a network of supporters, friends
Previous and volunteers. Individual editors are connected
pages: British to other union, professional or political organiza-
school students tions in which we organize.
demonstrating
against the war In the UK City Academies are modelled on the
US Charter school idea. The recent collapse of a
Charter school company in Los Angeles and the
underperformance of Charter school kids in
national tests suggests that this flagship of out-
sourced education is not working. Would you
agree?
To any rational observer one would have to say such
experiments are not working, but that doesn’t stop
the folks who are pushing privatization of public
services and market-based “solutions” to the educa-
tional problems that exist in the United States.
There is a very well-financed network of foun-
dations, think tanks, wealthy individuals, and right-
wing political organizations that have significant
capacity to continue the political campaigns on
these issues. Their goal isn’t the betterment of edu-
cation, so they are not deterred by reports of
school failure. Their goal is clearly privatization of
one of the few remaining public sector institutions
in the United States, along with the destruction, or
at least the weakening, of the two major teachers
14 Another school is possible
unions, the National Education Association and
the American Federation of Teachers.
But these folks are smart. They’ve used the
problems of the public school system to their
advantage. For example, in Milwaukee, the city
with the nation’s largest publicly-financed private
school voucher program, the right wing founda-
tions have been able to buy off a group of leaders
in the African-American and Latino communities
so that they support vouchers and have turned
against public schools.
The fact is the teacher unions and progressives
who support public education have to realize that
it’s not enough just to expose the aims of the
right-wing but to figure out ways to act on the
legitimate concerns of oppressed nationality com-
munities. This is particularly difficult given the sig-
nificant cut backs in school budgets. It’s the fine
line that most public sector unions have to walk;
on the one hand to defend the public sector and
services, and yet be critical and pressure those in
power to improve them. If we don’t do this strate-
gically, we open ourselves up to losing the battle
for the hearts and minds of significant section of
the urban community.
The anti-war editions of your journal must have
made an impact. Were they well received?

Our special editions that we put out, both after
the September 11 attack and after the launching
of the second Iraqi war, were well received in
some quarters, and of course, hated in others. We
distributed over 100,000 copies of our special
print edition of “War, Terrorism and Our Class-
rooms,” and another 100,000 pdfs of the issue
were downloaded from our web site. That cer-
tainly shows some serious interest in our work. At
the same time, the right wing, especially the right-
wing media, went ballistic on this matter.
For example, a Milwaukee-based radio talk
show personality got hold of our special edition
on Iraq and used it to try to get me fired. For 16
straight days my school principal, the school
superintendent and I received phone calls and
emails demanding that I be fired or worse. Actu-
ally a couple people suggested I move to France,
but they never offered to pay my way so I rejected
that idea. Seriously, it got ugly, and in a few cases
in other parts of the United States teachers were
fired.
For the vast majority, however, the post-9-11
and post-Iraq-invasion, flag-waving jingoism had
the effect of intimidating teachers from teaching
about this and other controversial subjects. Resis-
tance to this kind of wide-spread acceptance of
the status quo is one of Rethinking Schools’ key
messages: We believe that teachers have a civic
and moral responsibility to have their students
study issues of global injustice, and ask deep ques-
tions, probe “received” wisdom, even at the risk of
being labeled “unpatriotic.”
Is the US anti-war movement generally still
growing?
Yes it is very much alive, but it still hasn’t regained
the strength it had in the pre-Iraq invasion days of
February 2003. The recent demonstration of a
half a million people in August in front of the
Republican convention, however, shows signifi-
cant sentiment against the war. It was the largest
demonstration in the history of our nation at any
political convention. While Kerry supporters were
evident in the demonstration, the vast majority
were focused on anti-Bush and anti-war messages.
In one section of the march, people carried nearly
1,000 black cloth-draped coffins, representing the
number of US personnel who’ve died in the war.
It was very moving. Comments by Kerry that he’ll
“do a better job of winning the war” than Bush,
upset big chunks of the anti-war movement.
I think the Kerry voter registration efforts have
drawn mainly from the labor movement and
other social movements, like the environmental
and women’s movement, although some from the
anti-war movement. Mobilizing hard core anti-war
folks to work for Kerry has not been as easy.
That’s not to say people won’t end up voting for
him. Bush is so reactionary on virtually every
INTERVIEW
domestic and international matter, that people
know it’d be a disaster if the Bush-led cabal of
right wing ideologues, free-marketeers and Christ-
ian fundamentalists continued in power for
another four years.
How do you maintain a dissident pedagogy
inside otherwise hostile systems?
I maintain my pedagogical approaches in a couple
of ways.
First is my politics and commitment to justice.
This may sound corny, but what alternative is
there? A lapel pin I like to wear reads “If you are
not outraged, you are not paying attention.” Well,
I’m paying attention and I’m outraged. If teachers
think that they should be “neutral” in a world so
filled with injustice, then they are just modelling
moral and civic apathy. Is that what we want to
teach our children?
That being said, I don’t believe the role of polit-
ical teachers is to didactically teach students and
try to convince them of certain political positions.
Not in the least. What we need to do is something
much more complicated, much more in the spirit
of the great Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. We
need to help students interrogate their world, to
use all forms of text and media to better under-
stand it, and to see the importance of being sub-
jects, not objects of history to be acted upon. This
means providing alternatives to establishment
media and school texts, encouraging debate,
questioning, and role plays where all “official”
positions and dominant forms of thinking are fair
game. Ultimately it means engendering the kind
of social action we know is necessary to help cre-
ate a more just world.
The second way I maintain my sanity is
through my close friends and comrades in
Rethinking Schools and other political organiza-
tions. History teaches us that social change comes
through social movements, and I am inspired by
the social movements—whether they be in Chia-
pas or Palestine or in the barrios of East Los
Angeles in the United States. More importantly I
know that only by working together in our politi-
cal collectives, our trade unions and broader polit-
ical organizations and parties can we move
forward. My hope is that people will see the need
to move beyond much of the left-sectarianism that
has plagued progressive forces for so many years
and understand that a new world is only possible
with a bold, non-sectarian approach to social jus-
tice politics.
Bob Peterson, editor of Rethinking Schools, is a
fifth grade teacher at La Escuela Fratney, a bilingual
(Spanish/English) school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
He is also a writer, activist, and co-editor of the book,
Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an
Unjust World available at www.rethinkingschools.org
Another school is possible 15
PERSONALISED LEARNING
Personalised
learning as
social selection
Richard Hatcher, from the University of
Central England, in Birmingham, shows us
the bigger the idea the harder it falls
ersonalised learning is one of Labour’s
P new ‘big ideas’ for education. First
launched by Tony Blair at the 2003
Labour Party Conference, it was
defined by David Miliband that year as
‘an education system where assessment, curricu-
lum, teaching style, and out of hours provision are
all designed to discover and nurture the unique
talents of every single pupil…’1 In 2004 the DfES
published a pamphlet by Charles Leadbetter of
Demos, Learning about personalisation: how can
we put the learner at the heart of the education
system?2 Personalised learning is one of the key
themes of Labour’s 2004 Five Year Strategy for
Children and Learners.
At first sight, this seems to be one government
education policy we can all agree on. But a closer
look shows that what Labour means by person-
alised learning is a crude categorisation of pupils’
abilities as the basis for social selection into differ-
ent job-related pathways.
Categorising or connecting?
According to Miliband, ‘:...the most effective
teaching depends on really knowing the needs,
strengths and weaknesses of individual pupils. So
the biggest driver for change and gain is use of
data on pupil achievement to design learning
experiences that really stretch individual pupils...3
But ‘pupil data’ generated by a regime of tests and
targets does not provide the basis for really know-
16 Another school is possible
ing pupils. As the authors of the book Learning
without Limits4 say, ‘Tasks can be successfully
‘matched’ at an appropriate level of demand for
young people of different abilities or levels of
attainment without any genuine connection being
achieved between young people’s hearts and
minds and the tasks they are asked to undertake.’
(p182). It is a way of thinking exemplified by
Miliband’s advocacy of the spurious concepts of
‘Gifted and Talented’5 and of ‘individual learning
styles’,6 recently exposed as largely without scien-
tific basis.7 It leads teachers to conceptualise their
pupils in terms of categories of relatively stable
ability and creates a disposition to accept failure.
It results in differentiated provision, justified on
the basis of innate ‘aptitudes’, which reinforces,
not reduces, patterns of social inequality.
As Learning without Limits says, ‘Teaching that
seeks to foster diversity through co-agency is con-
cerned not with match, but with connection,
achieving a genuine meeting of minds, purposes
and concerns between teachers and young peo-
ple…’ (pp182-3). This means ‘teaching in a way
that does make use of specific knowledge about
individuals that is significant for learning, but uses
it in a way that does not perpetuate or re-create
the limiting and divisive effects that they associate
with ability labelling’, but instead ‘to anticipate
and lift limits’ to participation and learning, in the
context of common learning activities for every-
one in the class (p184).

All students This very different concept of learning, person-
deserve alised and collective at the same time, has
personalised resource implications which are ignored in
learning Labour’s version. Class sizes need to be smaller,
and in secondary schools so does the number of
students each teacher has to relate to. ‘Personal-
ization’ is one of the principles of the progressive
high school Coalition of Essential Schools in the
US, and it entails no teacher having to teach more
than 80 students in total because it is impossible
to make that meaningful ‘connection’ with more.
Personalisation and choice
as social selection
The key aim of Labour’s Five Year Strategy for
Children and Learners is to ‘promote personalisa-
PERSONALISED LEARNING
tion and choice’. Charles Leadbetter in his DfES
pamphlet stresses that:
‘The biggest challenge to the personalized
learning agenda is its implications for inequality.’
He warns that differences in provision, and
choice, will benefit the middle class at the
expense of the working class unless there is sub-
stantial state action to compensate. He is naïve.
The Five Year Strategy itself recognises the huge
and widening class gap in education, but proposes
no radical policies capable of reversing it. On the
contrary, the reality is that the fundamental pur-
pose of the personalisation and choice agenda is
social selection for the labour market. Charles
Clarke in his foreword to the Five Year Strategy
advocates ‘as young people begin to train for
Another school is possible 17
PERSONALISED LEARNING
work, a system that recognises individual apti-
tudes and provides as many tailored paths to
employment as there are people and jobs.’ In
other words, a hierarchy of different academic
and vocational pathways.
The dualised curriculum
This agenda is not unique to New Labour, it is a
deliberate European Union strategy to make edu-
cation conform to the needs of employers under
the cloak of the apparently user-friendly language
of ‘personalisation and choice’, as the recent
Thélot report in France illustrates.8 The aim is the
abandonment of any pretence of education pro-
viding high quality access for all to a common cul-
ture of knowledge, which is regarded both as
unnecessary for increasingly dualised labour mar-
ket needs and undesirably expensive. The
dualised labour market dictates a dualised cur-
riculum comprising a narrow and dumbed-down
common core of basic competences and a
broader subject curriculum which is marginalised
in the primary school and becomes reserved in
the secondary school for the largely middle class
higher achievers.
In England it starts in the primary school. In
February 2004, at a conference for Primary Strat-
egy leaders, Michael Barber, responsible for the
‘delivery’ of government policy, demanded ‘Is
enough time devoted to literacy and numeracy in
every class? If it’s less than 50 per cent then it’s
not enough.’9 On top of this additional time was
needed for extended writing. That leaves about 40
per cent for everything else. It is working class
children who pay the price, while for middle class
children the impoverished school curriculum is
supplemented by the ‘curriculum of the home’.
In secondary school the curriculum begins to
divide, cementing social segregation between and
within schools. The common curriculum ends at
age 14, from when foreign languages, the arts and
humanities become optional. It is mainly schools
in working-class areas which are abandoning these
subjects, while they remain an indicator of aca-
demic success in middle class schools. For the
majority of working class students the diet is a
basic core—exemplified by Tomlinson’s proposed
school-leaving tests in functional English, maths
and information technology—and vocational train-
ing. First came the decision to allow FE colleges to
take students from 14 part-time, again mainly
working class. The latest government plan, to be
published shortly in a White Paper, is that 14 year
old students can go to FE college fulltime, or take
up a trade such as plumbing under a ‘young
apprenticeship’ scheme on a split week basis
between college, school and work—all justified in
the name of personalised learning.10 And Bell, the
chief inspector, is due to call for new vocational
schools for 14-16 year olds.11
18 Another school is possible
Three principles of
education for all
In response we should say clearly three things.
First, what is good for some is good for all. If a
privileged enriched curriculum is right for the
five or ten per cent so-called ‘gifted and talented’,
how much more is it deserved by those less advan-
taged? If an introduction to the ‘world of work’ is
thought right for some at 14, it is right for all,
though as part of a critical education, not as pre-
mature job training.
Secondly, a high quality education for all,
allowing entry into the culture of knowledge and
full citizenship, requires a broad common core
curriculum until age 16. In that context there is
of course room for an element of choice, pro-
vided it does not serve to reinforce social
inequalities.
Thirdly, the way to tackle the deep class
inequality in our school system is not government-
style personalisation, choice and diversity but to
adopt the radical measures needed to provide
working class children and young people with the
intellectual tools for educational success.
Richard Hatcher works at the University of Central
England, Birmingham. Any correspondence to
Richard.Hatcher@uce.ac.uk
Notes
1 David Miliband, in his speech to the National
College for School Leadership in October 2003,
quoted in Personalised Learning—an Emperor’s
Outfit? by Martin Johnson, IPPR, March 2004. See
www.ippr.org.uk
2 http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/innovation-
unit/personalisation/pllearn/?version=1
3 Miliband as in 1.
4 S Hart, A Dixon, M J Drummond and D McIntyre,
(2004) Learning without Limits, Maidenhead: Open
University Press.
5 D Miliband (2004) ‘Choice and voice in
personalised learning’, speech to the
DfES/Demos/OECD conference on Personalising
Education: the future of public sector reform,
London, 18 May. See the critique by Robin
Alexander (2004) ‘Excellence, enjoyment and
personalised learning: a true foundation for choice?’
Education Review, 18 (1). (Edited version of keynote
address given to the NUT National Educational
Conference on 3 July 2004.)
6 Quoted by Johnson, as in 1.
7 F Coffield, D Moseley, E Hall and K Ecclestone
(2004) Should we be using learning styles? What
research has to say to practice. At www.lsrc.ac.uk.
See the DfES booklet Learning Styles, which
recommends the vacuous VAK model.
8 See the critiques at www.ecoledemocratique.org
9 Quoted by Alexander, as in 5.
10 Independent 13 December 2004, p18.
11 TES 7 January 2005, p1.
 EXCELLENCE AND ENJOYMENT

Assessment for learning

Primary school deputy headteacher Lisa Hayes argues

this can provide an alternative to SATs

Assessment for Learning is nothing new. Many

teachers have been using techniques that fall
within the broad spectrum of work that it
encompasses for years. What is new, is that within
the framework provided by the Primary Strategy
Document—Excellence and Enjoyment, it can be
seen as an alternative to SATs.
AfL is about demystifying learning at the same
time as allowing children to understand how
curricular targets can help them track their own
improvement. With curricular targets replacing
numeric targets we do away with the current
simplistic and dangerous reduction of the
measuring of attainment and replace it with the
ongoing commitment to a child centred inclusive
approach to maximising achievement. This is just
as important in gauging the quality of schools but
removes the unhealthy domination of league
tables and the current one size fits all approach
to national testing.
The principles behind AfL are simple.
● It involves telling children what they are going
to learn and why so that they can become
actively involved in their own learning
● It is about teachers adjusting their teaching Is this the best way of maximising achievement?
during lessons to take into account the needs
of pupils Teachers have never been in a better position
● It is based on the notion that feedback given to to win the argument that supports Assessment for
children about their work or performance can Learning as the core to effective teaching as
only be effective if it allows them to progress as opposed to Assessment of Learning which is all
a result of being given that feedback about summative assessment, tests, targets and
● It is about recognising the effect that tables.
assessment and feedback can have on a child in The current argument which claims that
empowering them to want to learn more or league tables make schools accountable can be
demotivating them and switching them off. easily rubbished when you consider that AfL if
● It is about children being able to assess well used by skilled teachers can make an
themselves and understand what they need to enormous difference to children’s achievement.
do in order to improve. The measure of achievement is against
The government is greatly encouraging curricular targets and not simplistic numeric
primary teachers to adopt these broad principles thresholds.
and adapt the implementation of them to meet Lisa Hayes is a Deputy Headteacher of a Primary
the needs of their own teaching style and the school in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, where she is leading
needs of their children. The DfES has produced a the implementation of Assessmemt for Learning. Lisa is
lot of training materials that support teachers and also the President of North Hertfordshire NUT and past
schools wishing to move towards this approach. President of Hertfordshire Division.
Another school is possible 19
KEY STAGE 1
Government
fails 7 year olds
Primary teacher from Coventry, Jane
Nellist, asks if the new plans for testing at
Key Stage 1 are really any different
uring the height of the anti-SATs
D movement, teschers, parents, pupils
and academics all urged the govern-
ment to abandon SATs, especially the
Key Stage 1 SATs for seven year olds.
Every anti-SATs stall and campaign meeting
organised by parents and teachers heard horror
stories about unneccesary stress parents thought
their children at seven were subjected to as a
direct result of the SATs.
In 2003, the NUT surveyed members in 12
LEAs around the country. More than 92 per cent
of Key Stage 1 teachers wanted the SATs abol-
ished. In a more recent survey this year, con-
ducted by FDS (First Destination Surveys), over
three quarters of parents surveyed wanted to see
an end to Key Stage 1 SATs. All major parent
groups support this move. So why hasn’t the gov-
ernment listened and scrapped these damaging
tests in England as has happened in Wales?
The government’s response to the tidal wave of
public and professional opposition was limited to
a pilot scheme in 35 LEAs in England. The pilot,
having been assessed by Leeds University, will now
be rolled out throughout England in 2005. How-
ever, we need to be clear, Key Stage 1 SATs are
still firmly in place.
The only difference is that teachers can now
choose which SATs papers and task materials
they use and when they carry them out. The fact
that teachers only have to report teacher assess-
20 Another school is possible
ment scores is a smokescreen—the tests still have
to be carried out! As for workload, my colleagues
carrying out the pilot did comment on reduced
workload as long as the school gives the teacher
time to plan and mark the tests as well as the
moderation that is required. With pressures on
schools to provide PPA time, time for KS1 SATs
may disappear.
So has the government got it right? The simple
answer is no! They have missed the golden oppor-
tunity to announce to the country that Key Stage
1 SATs do not serve any educational purpose. The
education spin merchants have missed their
chance. Just imagine the spin that could have
been:
● that the Tories got it wrong when they
introduced them in 1991
● that they have listened to the views of parents
and educational experts—the teachers
● that rather than enhance and improve
education in the most formative years of a
child’s life, they have been damaging and have
stifled the curriculum and educational
opportunities and duly abolished them, and
● that they TRUST teachers’ professional
judgement.
That would have been the sensible thing to do,
but no, we still have a system of testing in place for
seven year olds in England.
Is it that they don’t trust teachers? Do they
not want to appear to have given in to the NUT?

The answer cannot be that they are listening to
reasoned arguments, nor that they have based
their decisions on logic and research. All the
research is in our favour! It’s interesting to read
comments by Stephen Twigg in September
about the findings from the pilot. He said, “We
are putting all our faith and trust in teachers.
The trials have shown that teacher assessment is
robust and we have confidence in the profession.
So why the tests? Surely there is a big contradic-
tion here. If teacher assessment is robust, then
why the need to impose national SATs tests on
seven year olds?
The problem with SATs at Key Stage 1 is that it
depends very much on the attitude of the school
management. One would hope that schools try to
carry out the statutory requirements with little
impact on the stress levels of the pupils whilst
maintaining a broad and ballanced curriculum
that we should expect for seven year olds. Ensur-
ing the enjoyment and exploration part of the
KEY STAGE 1
curriculum remains crucial. Pupils don’t
Even with the new arrangements for KS1 SATs have to be
in 2005, I am afraid that fundamentally, KS1 SATs disaffected
are still enmeshed in our school systems and will
continue to distort the curriculum and learning
opportunities for our youngest pupils. Is it any
wonder that we are experiencing record numbers
of disaffected pupils at such an early age?
Undoubtedly the government has missed a
golden opportunity to demonstrate that it has lis-
tened for a change. Teachers will still be forced to
carry out the tests—whether they be this year’s or
next year’s version. Children will still be subject to
sitting them. The government has failed in its
duty and responsibility for our young pupils by
holding on to SATs against the odds. So the ques-
tion still remains. Why is the government intent
on keeping SATs at KS1? The answer I’m afraid is
that it is perfectly content with playing politics
with our children’s education.
Jane Nellist Primary teacher and Coventry NUT
Another school is possible 21
THE ART OF TEACHING
A question of
pedagogy
Classroom teachers from East London,
Paul Phillips and Joel Mcilven,
remember their favourite teachers
he often-quoted saying is that when you
T leave school you always remember the
teacher that you liked best. It is often
within these fond memories that we
find the teacher that was most like our-
selves as students or pupils, the one that could
relate or empathise with us and the teacher that
seemed most in tune with young peoples ideas.
Sadly these teachers were few and far between.
Yet we need to ask why that is, given that we were
often told that the days in school are the happiest
of our lives, free from the pressure of adult life.
Something then is clearly wrong.
The question of pedagogy, the science or art of
teaching is a serious issue that needs to be dis-
cussed as part of the struggle for an improved
education system. Indeed when talking about
teaching we need to consider the current situa-
tion and methods applied and what the possibili-
ties are for further improvement. When we
consider the situation in the class it should come
as no surprise that pupils often find it difficult to
relate to the role of the teacher. Teaching
becomes simply a matter of transference, the
transference of knowledge from the teacher to
the pupils. The pupils are seen as little more than
containers of information, and if obedient
enough, will be filled with the great wisdom of
the teacher. Yet this itself throws up a contradic-
tion in the form of the student and teacher rela-
tionship. In order for teaching to occur a process
22 Another school is possible
of learning has to take place and vice versa, both
dependent on each other. However in the above
instance only a form of dictatorial control has
actually occurred
The role and place of pupils’ personal experi-
ences and opinions of the world are often
negated for the importance of further informa-
tion learning that can be crammed into a one
hour session. It should come as no surprise that
pupils often sit in the class bored, frustrated, won-
dering and often remarking that “this has nothing
to do with me”. No matter how hard we try as
teachers the pupils often just don’t care. Part of
this problem is the way in which the learning of
knowledge is not seen as an action taken by both
teacher and pupils together, but by the activism of
the teacher on behalf of the pupil. The creativity
of both teacher and pupils are destroyed and
replaced by obedience, institutionalisation and
behaviourism. And as for democracy in the class,
forget it.
To understand this better we need to look
closer at the education system itself and in partic-
ular the national curriculum. The National Cur-
riculum introduced under the Tory government
during the years of Margaret Thatcher set out to
determine what subjects and knowledge had to be
taught within a limiting framework. As with the
method of teaching already explained subjects
become categorised and dichotomised. Geogra-
phy is geography; history is history. It is within

this sense that subjects lose their historical and
social context. Take the way a pupil might learn
that Rome is the capital of Italy in a geography
lesson. This alone does not explain how, why or
when it became the capital. The curriculum also
highlights another problem that of the lack of say
or influence that the pupils and teachers, the very
people who are supposed to benefit from educa-
tion, actually have. The very structure of the sys-
tem is one of a top—down approach, in which
education is thrust upon them.
Alienation
The continual and over aggressive testing and
assessing of student, whether through SATs or
other examinations is just one aspect in which
both teacher and pupil become further alienated
by the education process. The system becomes a
system that seeks to evaluate the personalities of
its children by assigning them numbered levels.
Both pupil and teacher feel this alienation and
pressure, as the need for results to prove your
worth takes place and any level of creativity is
strained in order for schools to out do other com-
peting schools.
But what would a better way of teaching look
like. For a start we need to replace the abstraction
of information and start with real lived experi-
ences of the pupils before relating these ideas to
the further knowledge that would be gained. A
THE ART OF TEACHING
pedagogy that would involve all pupils in the Teaching the
process of learning and teaching dialectically and teachers
not separated, in order to transform knowledge
and thus begin the process of transforming soci-
ety. To move away from the idea that pupils can
somehow be assessed via a numbering system and
to be valued as a part in the process of learning.
To do this the conflict of the teacher—pupil has to
be broken and a greater sense of democracy
placed within the classroom. In this the activity of
teaching and learning, and the development of
knowledge is in the hands of those taking part in
it. Greater freedom, creativity and value for both
pupils and teachers must exist in this process.
The transformation of pedagogy is not the be
all and end all of the education system. But we
need to look to these arguments and to relate
them to the bigger picture of the attacks made on
the education system as a whole. We should also
use these points in order to explain the system
itself. The struggle for pay, better resources and
finances must be tied with the argument for
teaching and learning to improve. Placed on its
own a progressive pedagogy does not make sense.
Equally to say it can only change within a different
system would be incorrect as well. This would lead
us to await the glorious revolution without ever
taking action. An improved pedagogy won’t
change the education or social system but it is an
argument worth discussing.
Another school is possible 23
The Anti-SATs Alliance was established at a Contact the Anti-SATs Alliance
conference on 28 June 2003, attended by 180 Jon Berry
teachers, parents, govenors and others opposed to Secretary Hertfordshire NUT
the SATs. John Illingworth, past president of the NUT Anti-SATs Alliance,
was elected chair of the campaign. The conference 61 Cambridge Road,
agreed the following campaign statement: St Albans
Herts AL1 5LE
This conference of parents and teachers
expresses it’s opposition to the SATs E-mail nutjohn@aol.com or
(National Curriculum Tests). secretary@hertfordshirenut.org.uk

We believe Phone (h) 01727 835 554 (w) 01438 313 011
1 They don’t help children learn
2 They don’t help teachers teach Reports and campaigning ideas will be posted on
3 Teachers are put under pressure to ‘teach the test’ the website www.stopthesats.plus.com and on
4 The tests, not the needs of the children, dominate www.hertfordshirenut.org
the work and life of schools
5 They are used for league tables, which are
deceptive, divisive and misleading

● We agree to establish a campaign to abolish SATs

and invite those who share our aims to join with us
● We agree to support all practical measures
possible to publicise the case against SATs
● We agree to support teachers and their unions
should they decide to implement a boycott of the
tests
● We agree to establish a steering committee from
this conference which shall be open to parents,
carers, education campaigners and teacher
representatives, to campaign for these objectives