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SATs Testing

Is the Secretary of State aware of the concern among teachers about the quality of the tests themselves? When I visited three primary schools in Slough, I found that the teachers were not particularly concerned about the results, although they were angry that they had not got them yet. However, they were very keen to tell me that the extended writing test at key stage 2 was ethnically biased and not appropriate for the pupils of Slough. Those teachers are also concerned, and this will affect every constituency, about how the RAISE system—the system for reporting and analysis for improvement through school self-evaluation—for tracking pupil progress will be affected by what has happened and by the quality of the tests, which look at individual questions.