After a week when it's been reported that 1000s of pupils have sought counselling for stress as a result of test/exam pressures, here is an apt poem by fellow Red Poet and Welsh socialist republican Barry Taylor -
SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
They slowly shuffle in,
Grey and stooped, faces lined with care,
Shoulders roundly hunched,
Peering close with world-weary eyes.
No-one speaks aloud ;
Funereal silence grimly stretches on.
Heads once filled with dreams
Confused, listless, dream no more.
Helpless, I look on,
Longing to reach out, to offer help,
But I am unable,
My silent empathy is useless here.
A cog in the machine,
Abhoring this but forced to play my part,
I enforce the official line.
They may be only nine
But it's still test time.
Barry's also a Buddhist, atheist, haiku-dueller ; a dog-lover, home-brewer and teacher and I'm pretty sure he's a very disillusioned yet creative one who truly feels for the children in a system which imposes pointless pressure and demonstrates a total lack of trust in the teaching profession.
He's going part-time in September and is delighted.
Other friends are quitting the system, completely exhausted and drained by constant form-filling, inspection and the need to get good grades whatever the particular 'cohort' ( or year group ) are like.
As well as the reports in the press of the mental torment which our children and young people are forced to endure, there have been two excellent and revealing articles in the 'Guardian'.
The first was a personal account by a Head in England Peter Foggo who, together with his Deputy Head wife, decided to resign . He explains that the exam regime, budget cuts and impending introduction of Grammar schools were the main reasons.
He ends with - ' The vision of a world that sees every man for himself, fighting in the gutter over the last crust of bread, is what has driven me out.'
An equally enlightening article by writer Gaby Hinsliff looks at the obsessive concentration on English grammar and its many terms in Primaries in England and the way it's destroying creativity ; she ends - 'Killing children's enthusiasm for writing is a mistake we will live to regret.'
In Cymru, we should not be complacent. Our Primary children have been given two numeracy and one literacy test in the last few weeks. Every single year group sitting these in a system more intense and gruelling than England.
A minority of lazy teachers welcome this : they can teach towards tests and avoid planning lessons.
Teachers must also mark these tests which, in the numeracy reasoning test included truly baffling problems about currency on the Planet Zog ( I believe the examiner came from that planet!).
These annual tests are sat from the age of six upwards, with six year-olds taking the same ones as eight year-olds.
Despite the Donaldson Report (commissioned by the Welsh Assembly Gov.) which strongly recommended phasing out these tests, LibDem Education Minister Kirsty Williams' policy is merely to shift them online in the future at a cost of £8 million.
This figure is not only a utter waste of money, which would be better spent recruiting more staff, but a definite underestimate.
Many schools don't possess sufficient computers and many haven't ones which work regularly.
It would probably take the best part of a term just to carry out the tests!
One experienced and highly dedicated Primary teacher inherited a class of six and seven year-olds where 25 % could not read at the beginning of the year.
This teacher managed to get all the class reading proficiently only for the tests to arrive and act as a hammer-blow, knocking their confidence and rendering one boy ( the subject of my poem) so upset he cried throughout the whole WAG Reading Test.
Though some pupils can succeed, the tests are largely designed to befuddle and undermine, producing the self-same exam phobia the SATs once did ( and still do in England). How can it benefit a pupil to get 0 in these, as some have done?
It's high time opposition parties like Plaid Cymru and the Greens embraced an alternative solution, one which places trust in teachers to foster creativity and imagination, to enable pupils to think for themselves or work in co-operation.
The thematic approach - with local history, geography, nature and literature as its focus - should be at the centre of the curriculum in Primaries
especially ; in this way, local writers, historians etc could visit schools frequently to support and encourage.
It's not complicated, but requires investment.
All of the money squandered at present on the tests, Challenge Advisors and many needless courses should go into this instead.
Just like the old 11 + exam we are increasingly ( under a moribund Labour administration) training pupils the tricks of passing tests and exams rather than discovering and researching for themselves.
Ideals aren't merely a map of the future; they're paths towards a progressing nation.
Let's venture along them before we are lost in a suffocating smog, with no vision in testing times.
TESTING TIME
He's just learnt to read,
I'm so proud of him.
He picks up books
like they are footballs
and prides in them.
He used to stare at words
as if they were tall boys
in the playground
playing a game
he couldn't join in.
His teacher sat with him
long hours, patient as a groundsman
caring for the grass,
nurturing simple seeds
into sentences, paragraphs.
Then came testing time
and he broke down at home -
'I tried Mam, I couldn't cope,
I cried all the exam!'
Threw his books in frustration.
We cwtched and reassured him -
'No matter, you're doing fine!'
His face a punctured ball
struck against thorns
next to the tended ground.
SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
They slowly shuffle in,
Grey and stooped, faces lined with care,
Shoulders roundly hunched,
Peering close with world-weary eyes.
No-one speaks aloud ;
Funereal silence grimly stretches on.
Heads once filled with dreams
Confused, listless, dream no more.
Helpless, I look on,
Longing to reach out, to offer help,
But I am unable,
My silent empathy is useless here.
A cog in the machine,
Abhoring this but forced to play my part,
I enforce the official line.
They may be only nine
But it's still test time.
Barry's also a Buddhist, atheist, haiku-dueller ; a dog-lover, home-brewer and teacher and I'm pretty sure he's a very disillusioned yet creative one who truly feels for the children in a system which imposes pointless pressure and demonstrates a total lack of trust in the teaching profession.
He's going part-time in September and is delighted.
Other friends are quitting the system, completely exhausted and drained by constant form-filling, inspection and the need to get good grades whatever the particular 'cohort' ( or year group ) are like.
As well as the reports in the press of the mental torment which our children and young people are forced to endure, there have been two excellent and revealing articles in the 'Guardian'.
The first was a personal account by a Head in England Peter Foggo who, together with his Deputy Head wife, decided to resign . He explains that the exam regime, budget cuts and impending introduction of Grammar schools were the main reasons.
He ends with - ' The vision of a world that sees every man for himself, fighting in the gutter over the last crust of bread, is what has driven me out.'
An equally enlightening article by writer Gaby Hinsliff looks at the obsessive concentration on English grammar and its many terms in Primaries in England and the way it's destroying creativity ; she ends - 'Killing children's enthusiasm for writing is a mistake we will live to regret.'
In Cymru, we should not be complacent. Our Primary children have been given two numeracy and one literacy test in the last few weeks. Every single year group sitting these in a system more intense and gruelling than England.
A minority of lazy teachers welcome this : they can teach towards tests and avoid planning lessons.
Teachers must also mark these tests which, in the numeracy reasoning test included truly baffling problems about currency on the Planet Zog ( I believe the examiner came from that planet!).
These annual tests are sat from the age of six upwards, with six year-olds taking the same ones as eight year-olds.
Despite the Donaldson Report (commissioned by the Welsh Assembly Gov.) which strongly recommended phasing out these tests, LibDem Education Minister Kirsty Williams' policy is merely to shift them online in the future at a cost of £8 million.
This figure is not only a utter waste of money, which would be better spent recruiting more staff, but a definite underestimate.
Many schools don't possess sufficient computers and many haven't ones which work regularly.
It would probably take the best part of a term just to carry out the tests!
One experienced and highly dedicated Primary teacher inherited a class of six and seven year-olds where 25 % could not read at the beginning of the year.
This teacher managed to get all the class reading proficiently only for the tests to arrive and act as a hammer-blow, knocking their confidence and rendering one boy ( the subject of my poem) so upset he cried throughout the whole WAG Reading Test.
Though some pupils can succeed, the tests are largely designed to befuddle and undermine, producing the self-same exam phobia the SATs once did ( and still do in England). How can it benefit a pupil to get 0 in these, as some have done?
It's high time opposition parties like Plaid Cymru and the Greens embraced an alternative solution, one which places trust in teachers to foster creativity and imagination, to enable pupils to think for themselves or work in co-operation.
The thematic approach - with local history, geography, nature and literature as its focus - should be at the centre of the curriculum in Primaries
especially ; in this way, local writers, historians etc could visit schools frequently to support and encourage.
It's not complicated, but requires investment.
All of the money squandered at present on the tests, Challenge Advisors and many needless courses should go into this instead.
Just like the old 11 + exam we are increasingly ( under a moribund Labour administration) training pupils the tricks of passing tests and exams rather than discovering and researching for themselves.
Ideals aren't merely a map of the future; they're paths towards a progressing nation.
Let's venture along them before we are lost in a suffocating smog, with no vision in testing times.
TESTING TIME
He's just learnt to read,
I'm so proud of him.
He picks up books
like they are footballs
and prides in them.
He used to stare at words
as if they were tall boys
in the playground
playing a game
he couldn't join in.
His teacher sat with him
long hours, patient as a groundsman
caring for the grass,
nurturing simple seeds
into sentences, paragraphs.
Then came testing time
and he broke down at home -
'I tried Mam, I couldn't cope,
I cried all the exam!'
Threw his books in frustration.
We cwtched and reassured him -
'No matter, you're doing fine!'
His face a punctured ball
struck against thorns
next to the tended ground.
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