Industry News
Exam stress "linked to mental health problems"
Posted on 12th May 2008
With the start of Sats exams this week, a teachers' leader has linked the stress associated with taking the tests to the rise in childhood mental health problems.
Sats exams are taken by children aged seven, 11 and 14 and the results are used to discover what national curriculum level pupils have reached and if schools have hit attainment targets.
However, the leader of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has said that the current arrangements "narrow" the national curriculum.
Mary Bousted told a union conference in Torquay: "Children's mental health problems cannot be divorced from their status as the most tested in the world."
The government is to pilot new tests to replace Sats as part of its Children's Plan. Pupils will be entered for the exams when teachers feel they are ready.
However, the Times Educational Supplement reported last week that only one in ten pupils passed pilot tests of the new exams, leading the government to alter the content.