ONE has to wonder at why some teachers don’t wish their pupils to do these assessments, which from my understanding would be a much more suitable word to describe them.
Tests produce pass/fail marks, these do not. These assess where a child is at.
How will the local council or governing bodies know which schools or areas need extra assistance without some form of assessment? Or maybe some teachers don’t want them as it highlights their failure to impart knowledge to the pupils?
When you get told that a five-year-old is distressed by something, remember this is the age where putting on a blue rather than green shoe, or having them sit down at the “wrong” side of a square table can distress them.
Kenneth Sutherland
Livingston
THIS campaign against P1 testing seems like an atypical middle-class reaction to a logical approach to the problems presented at first year to teachers. With no prior knowledge of the new intake’s pre-school history - ie did they attend nursery, have they language difficulties, what has the parental pre-school input been - some structured assessment is a necessity.
Neil Nicolson
Glasgow
The supposed furore over P1 testing is a perfect example of hype. Those who "took" the test and their parents did not notice it happening. It looks to me like those who did notice were the unwitting victims of the cynical hype exercise. What has anyone to gain from making our five- and six-year-olds into a political football?
Sandy Carmichael (grandad)
via email
READ MORE: Campaign launched to take P1 pupils out of national testing
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