Richard Garner: The obsession with exams and targets is destroying childhood

A significant moment went almost unnoticed this week in all the furore over A-level marking and standards.

Indeed, it was entirely unconnected with the growing frenzy that seemed in danger of spiralling out of control.

Pollsters who surveyed 300 schoolchildren discovered that worries about doing well at school had replaced bullying as their biggest fear during their schooldays.

Where had they got those worries from? From their parents, probably, who have heard all the modern mantras that test and exam results are the be all and end all of the education system. From their teachers, too, who are under pressure from being set never-ending targets for achievement in national curriculum tests, GCSEs and A-levels.

And from the whole ethos of the school, with the head fearful for his place in the league tables introduced not only for GCSEs and A-levels but for 11-year-olds' test results, too.

A sign of how these are in the forefront of headteachers' minds emerged in the press release from the three heads' organisations – the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, Girls' School Asso- ciation and Secondary Headteachers Association, which between them represent the majority of school heads.

Their statement, you may recall, alleged that interference by government exams watchdogs had led to A-level papers being marked down and it cited as one of the disasters that lay ahead because of this the fact that the school league tables published later this year would be inaccurate.

Nobody doubts that the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority would have been acting scandalously if it did lean on the three exam boards to mark A-levels down, thus threatening to destroy the chances of thousands of pupils of getting to their first choice of university.

If the independent inquiry being run by Mike Tomlinson, a former chief schools inspector, proves that was the case, then – in the words of ministerial aides to Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, "heads will roll".

However, perhaps we ought to take time out to relax and wonder whether the education system we have created – where pressure to perform is paramount – is in the best interest of parents, pupils and teachers.

Already there is talk from headteachers' organisations that the pressure of three consecutive years of national exams – GCSEs followed by AS-levels followed by A-levels – has led to many young people questioning whether they want to go on to spend three years studying at university. At the very least, they argue, it is leading to more youngsters taking the option of a gap year before they go on to higher education. At the very worst, it is leading to more youngsters dropping out at the end of the first year of the sixth form as they find the pressures of even two years of consecutive examinations too much.

Next week the Government will be forced to admit that it has missed the key education target that it set itself when it first came to office – a target of 80 per cent of 11-year-olds reaching the required standard in their English tests and 75 per cent in maths.

A survey by The Independent of local education authorities two weeks ago showed that the results were likely to reveal schools were about 5 percentage points short of the English target and perhaps 1 point short of the maths target. The headlines will all shout "failure" and there will be pressure for schools to pull out all the stops to improve their results.

Indeed, targets have already been set for 2004: ministers want 85 per cent to reach the target in both subjects.

As David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said two weeks ago, it is the Government that will have made a failure out of a success story.

The plain fact is that when Labour came into office five years ago 40 per cent of pupils were failing to meet the targets. Today it is just 25 per cent.

Ministers will tell you that the setting of the targets has driven up performance. What may be true, though, is that the national literacy and numeracy strategies by themselves were sufficiently innovative to have improved teaching standards and results in tests without recourse to targets.

Earlier this week the national curriculum test results for 14-year-olds this summer were published. In all the mayhem about A-levels, you might have missed them – 66 per cent reached the required standard in English and 67 per cent in maths, an increase of one percentage point in both cases but posing a question mark over whether (you've guessed it) they will reach demanding targets set for 2004 of 75 per cent for each subject. To help attain that target, an interim target for 12-year-olds has also been set: that 90 per cent of children of that age group should reach level four – the required standard for 11-year-olds. To achieve this, those who failed to reach the required standard at the age of 11 are then retested the following year.

In the words of Margaret Morrissey, spokeswoman for the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations: "It is sad to think that all the pressures are having such an impact on today's children. It shows that children have lost something that we should cherish dearly – their childhood. It has been eroded."

So what happens now? We will have to await the outcome of the Tomlinson inquiry to find out how the A-level fiasco will end.

Once that is completed, though, we need to take a good look at the kind of education system we want. As a first step, ministers should consider carefully all the targets they have set. They are only setting themselves up for failure after failure if the targets are missed and maybe – just maybe – teachers could draw up individual targets for their pupils to achieve. After all, they know the children. Government bureaucrats do not.

We should also relieve some of the pressures of the Government's testing regime. GCSEs followed by AS-levels followed by A-levels was really introduced as a fudge because ministers did not want to go down the whole road of the International Baccalaureate, which would achieve the same aim of broadening sixth-form studies without the rigour of so many year-on-year national examinations.

We should find more time in school for pursuits such as sport, drama and music, which many pupils are dropping, particularly in the first year of the sixth form because of the importance of AS-levels. Perhaps then we will get a life.

THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

THE TEACHER

Sue Hay, 31, a history and sociology teacher at Greenford High School in west London, believes that the new A-level system has been a positive development for students, who now study a broader range of subjects.

"There is a danger of exam overload, particularly in the sixth form when kids sometimes want to retake AS or A2 modules to try to improve their grades even though that will increase the pressure. It's my job as a teacher to advise them about whether this is in their best interests or not.

I would stick with the present system. It has a lot to offer students and it does work. The high-profile nature of the present problems at least means they will be properly investigated and should never happen again.''

THE HEAD

Bob Reed, headteacher of the Anglo European School in Ingatestone, Essex, believes that students should sit fewer external exams.

"I have seen an increasing number of youngsters whose response to the exam pressures is to drop out or become ill. Young people are much more anxious about obtaining exam results. There is now so much depending on their grades. But if they do well they face accusations that their exams have got easier.

"Many aspects of the new curriculum are empowering. But we need to experiment with methods of assessment including teacher assessment and even self and peer assessment – which would be truly revolutionary. We need to put the focus back on to pupils' whole learning experience rather than concentrating only on their exam results.''

THE EDUCATIONIST

Dylan Wiliam, professor of educational assessment at King's College London.

He says Britain should move away from external public exams in favour of teacher assessment, which would be more reliable and less stressful for pupils. "Coursework is normally based on special projects and done at home with parental support,'' he said. "I would be reluctant to increase the amount of coursework unless by coursework you meant the work the student does every day in class. Using external exams is not a reliable way of measuring pupil performance as it depends on how they measure up over a couple of hot days in June. Teacher assessment would be more reliable as it would measure work over the whole course and involve teachers who know their pupils very well.''