Yet another Labour U-turn: Now tests for 14-year-olds are scrapped
SCHOOLS Secretary Ed Balls performed a sensational U-turn tonight, announcing that national tests for 14-year-olds would be scrapped.
His move follows last summer's fiasco when hundreds of thousands of pupils got incorrect or late results.
It also comes just three months after Mr Balls told MPs it would be 'quite wrong' to axe SATS tests at age 14 and follows other humiliating climbdowns in the last few days on 42 days detention and controversial reforms of inquests.
Both teachers and the Conservatives welcomed the move - which means that roughly 600,000 school children will not have to sit national exams this summer.
It means that instead of traditional exams, pupils will get more assessment by teachers in the classroom throughout their first three years at secondary school. National tests at 11 will stay.
Work has already started on a new system of 'report cards' aimed at making easier for parents to check how well their child's school is doing compared to others. But they are not likely to be brought in for several years.
Mr Balls' dramatic about-turn comes less than a fortnight after Blairite former Schools Minister Lord Adonis - an enthusiast of testing - left the department.
Speaking in August this year, Mr Balls told the House of Commons that scrapping externally-marked tests would be 'quite the wrong thing to do in the interests of children and young people in our country'.
Shadow Children's Secretary Michael Gove said he welcomed Mr Balls' change of heart.
He said: "We've argued for fewer national tests and more rigour and we want to work constructively to improve the assessment and qualifications regime."
But Liberal Democrat schools spokesman David Laws branded the decision a 'complete U-turn'.
He added: "The Sats tests taken by 14-year-olds are not only a waste of time but have been highly unreliable over the last few years."
Mr Balls' climbdown - which only applies to England - also won support from the head teachers' union and other teaching groups.
The NASUWT union said schools would react with 'a deep, collective sigh of relief'.
Last summer's disaster erupted after American firm ETS was handed a five-year, £156 million contract to administer and mark the tests.
Papers were lost, pupils were handed inexplicable grades and unqualified students recruited to mark the tests.
Teachers have always complained about the tests and the extra workload they claimed they produced. But they were popular with many parents eager to make sure that schools were not letting their children down.
Mr Balls claimed that he had not performed a u-turn, insisting that he always had an open mind over whether the tests should stay.
He said: "I don't think we have done a U-turn. What we've done is we've looked carefully at the evidence, we've talked to heads and we've set out the next stage in the future of teaching assessment for pupils in our country, and it's the right decision and it's based upon principle.
"I don't think my predecessors or the Conservatives in 1993 were wrong to introduce Key Stage 3 tests at all and I think they've played an important role.
"But we're now moving into a different phase when we need a more intensive focus on pupil progress in the early years and the school report card as a more comprehensive view of school performance."
It came as the Tories claimed Labour's flagship school rebuilding programme is 'woefully behind schedule'.
