Will benchmarking lower Church school standards?

During a meeting for parents of children attending Church schools, we “discovered” the new benchmark tests.

I am very concerned about the possibility that my child’s school participates.

Teachers tend to teach for the test. It is worrying if our school opts to adopt these exams: the sample papers clearly show lower levels than those taught at my daughter’s school.

This will most probably lead to a deterioration of standards and it is difficult to keep standards of teaching and learning if students are not challenged enough.

To keep standards and levels, the school exams should be kept, and so students will be faced with a double dose of exams, with ensuing extra stress, and the “loss” of hours of learning.

The advantage of these exams is that they test various skills (speaking, reading, etc.) and parents will know exactly where their children stand.

These different skills are already being tested as from early primary at our school. So this set of summative exams will not offer more information than we currently have, with four informative reports annually.

Formative assessment goes on all year round, and a detailed progress report, based on different criteria in each subject, is sent home twice a year, while summative assessment is done twice a year, with an equally informative report including a breakdown of marks, comments and feedback in every subject.

Receiving such thorough progress reports does not entail further information. We hope that present educational levels are not lowered, and with it the “deactivation” of long years of hard work and experimentation in mixed ability groups that took place, with success, in a number of Church schools. I sincerely fear that the adoption of these benchmark exams may decrease and erode levels of teaching and learning levels at primary level, which is the basis of all future education. Emphasis “for all children to succeed” can be very well understood and this is definitely what each and every parent wants for his or her child, and what the Directorate of Quality Standards in Education also rightly wants. However, the mechanism adopted “for all children to succeed” should not imply lowering the level to be reached. The secret behind the drive “for all children to succeed” is in early intervention!

The state has every right to get a national snapshot of the educational level. However, there are other methods for benchmarking purposes that will not hamper systems that have been proven to work well. I am not ready to jeopardise my child’s education for the sake of a statistical exercise. I hope that the concerns of parents (and many of us are very concerned) are seriously considered and that no (hidden or not so hidden) pressure is exerted regarding the final decision by schools. We hope that our views will be seriously considered and “true” consultation channels are available through PTAs and meetings for parents as has always happened at our school.