To anyone who believes in the severe testing regime used in all Welsh schools ( Welsh Government Tests), I'd ask a simple question - 'What do you remember from school?'
My own answer is equally direct - ' The things I enjoyed.'
This wasn't always down to good teaching and at English 'O' Level I enthusiastically took to the course because of interesting texts like 'Modern Short Stories, a contemporary poetry anthology, Graves's 'Goodbye to all that' and even old colonial Arthur Grimble's 'A pattern of islands', which gave me a fascinating insight into a very different culture .
I still failed English Literature first time though!
I knew why I'd failed Physics : I loathed it. I couldn't see the sense in learning all those laws we copied into the teacher's Little Blue Book ( we even nicknamed him 'Mao Tse Hoot'!).
Despite my new-found love of lit., after years of stale daffs and very depressed clouds, I'd failed in the very subject I went on to study at Uni and then to teach.
The school found out why : I simply hadn't grasped the trick of learning loads of quotations and using them regularly ( just as pupils have to nowadays).
Armed with this tactic, I passed the re-sit without a problem.
The SATs in England have been reduced to chaos and farce in recent weeks because of two leaks of the papers and one was even abandoned as a result. Sabotage is suspected!
I read letters in the Guardian praising Wales and Scotland for their progressive systems.
Yet , our present testing process is no better than the SATs and many teachers believe it's worse as they have to mark and moderate papers, thus taking even more time away from preparation and teaching.
In Scotland, the SNP intends to introduce a similar system, despite its utter failure here in Cymru.
Teachers are encouraged to differentiate more and more in their lessons, gearing them towards individuals' special needs and the various levels of attainment within one class.
However, in these WAG tests - which have recently been taken by Years 2-6 in Primary schools - there was no attempt at differentiation whatsoever.
If this were an exercise to be judged for teaching assessment, it would be totally rejected.
The youngest pupils of Year 2 ( aged 6) and the oldest of Year 3 ( aged 8) even sit the same tests.
Some pupils will simply fail to cope at all and their feelings of failure will be reinforced. Others will try really hard , but become very frustrated by the ludicrous time-limits imposed.
Teachers can help them to cope, but all this pointless stress is ultimately the fault of the Welsh Gov. who are obsessed with data and do not trust teacher assessment.
No party in the recent Assembly elections made education a priority.
No party so much as mentioned this tortuous testing in their leaflets and broadcasts.
Just a glance at a single test paper reveals so much.
The Reading Test for 7-9 year-olds is 13 pages long ( 21 pages for the younger ones, by the way) and the first comprehension entitled ' A journey through time' consists of paragraphs about 19th century bicycles.
There are many tick-box and fill-in answers, but no room for expression or......for goodness sake, opinions.
Whoever created this cannnot have taught at this level. It was probably set by a computer in England , using cells taken from Leighton Andrews' famous brain.
Though the next comprehension is more child-friendly, the final one is intimidating : called 'A castle tour', it is based on a detailed, annotated diagram of a Medieval castle.
I recall teaching SATs to Year 9 and the format was actually easier!
For children starting Primary and still in the Foundation Phase (of predominantly 'outdoor learning') all this must be terrifying. For older ones, it threatens to put them off school for life.
Just because they aren't studying spellings and intransitive verbs like in England, let's not be smug about the Welsh system.
Our rulers in the Bay have lost touch with what education should be.
Music, art, history and creative writing are all side-lined to focus on the core curriculum and coursework is jettisoned, meaning that pupils' ability to research is diminished drastically.
Yet, without any serious political opposition or alternatives, Labour were re-elected and will continue to ruin the lives of future generations because......we get what we voted for : low morale, heavy workload, large classes , bullying management and intelligence defined merely at strategies to pass exams.
THINGS I REMEMBER FROM INFANTS AND JUNIOR
Frogspawn pudding
skin of blancmange
mashed spuds with bullets in
and having to stand in front of everyone
to explain why I didn't like them.
Finding Cambridge on a map
and tracing my finger over from Aber:
two distant stars.
Being called names like 'Welshie!'
being called nicknames like 'Jinks!'
being asked if I was chasing mice.
The map of my island 'Marshenland'
and the world I created
of my own I lived in
and wanted to remain.
Stick insects the teacher brought in
in jars, perfect camouflage :
aliens in the classroom.
New girl from the States
sat and chatted endlessly
and once peed on the floor.
The Head who turned me over
and hit me for messing
( next day I took ill,
but I never explained).
The whole sheet I missed
from the 11+ Exam,
so I never got to the posh school
where they wore stripy blazers.
The story about the penny
I wrote christening him Clitterclop
and sobbing when my teacher
told me not to exaggerate.
Roles of Prince Charming, Otter, Friar Tuck
and 'Once In Royal David' soprano solo
persuaded my mum I needed to go
to that school with fancy uniform
( I still wonder, did I not do
that page because I knew?).
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