Heads back calls to scrap testing for 7-year-olds

Campaign to scrap national curriculum tests in primary and secondary schools is boosted by headteachers' union backing

Headteachers will back the National Union of Teachers in a campaign to get rid of national curriculum tests for 600,000 seven-year-olds, their leader declares today.

In an interview with The Independent on the eve of his association's annual conference, David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "We do not believe the key stage one tests [for pupils aged seven] are desirable.''

The conference, which starts today in York, will debate a call to follow the NUT in boycotting all national curriculum tests for seven, 11 and 14-year-olds. The motion is said by heads to underline the frustration they feel over the way the school curriculum is shaped by the demands of tests, targets and league tables.

However, other motions – calling on the Government to emulate the decision of the Welsh Assembly last year to abandon tests for seven-year-olds and scrap league tables for primary schools – are more likely to be backed than the call for a boycott. Mr Hart said: "I think the key stage one test is the big issue. I think the NUT would have been well advised to concentrate on the key issue of these tests.

"I think if the NUT wants people to support it on philosophical grounds it should have stuck to that one test.

"Our members are against key stage one testing. They are against public testing of children at that age. They ask quite legitimately why it is they can do without it in Northern Ireland, Scotland and now Wales.

"The NAHT would have no difficulty in supporting a campaign to that end.''

The NUT has said it wants to start the campaign to persuade ministers to drop the tests with the support of parents and a group of about 60 writers and authors. Philip Pullman, Beverley Naidoo and Carol Ann Duffy were among the group who signed a letter last month claiming testing was stifling creativity in primary schools. The union said it would ballot on a boycott of all tests to be run next year if it failed to win ministers over.

Mr Hart questioned the NUT's tactics, saying: "The question is how you tackle the campaign. I would much prefer a large, powerful alliance confronting the Government in debate over this.''

He said headteachers believed an assessment of a child's progress by their teacher was "much the better way of dealing with seven-year-olds''. He added: "Philosophically, we have no difficulty with the idea of getting rid of external testing at seven. It's the tactics that are crucial. We must get them right.''

Mr Hart added that the Government's declared target of getting 85 per cent of pupils to reach the required standard in national curriculum tests for 11-year-olds in English and maths was "also in dire threat". He said: "I think most people privately accept that the 2004 targets are not going to be obtained."

It was the inability to meet targets of 75 per cent in maths and 80 per cent in English last year that played a part in the decision by Estelle Morris to resign as Secretary of State for Education.

However, Mr Hart said that the biggest worry facing heads was budgets, adding that a survey to be published by the NAHT later today would show school budgets were in "negative territory'' this year.

The Government has acknowledged that rising costs – such as pensions and national insurance contributions as well as performance-related pay rises for some teachers – have increased the cost of running a school by more than 10 per cent this year. But a spokesman insisted that £250mof new funding was available for education this year.