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End the "tick-box culture", says private school leader

Posted on 22nd September 2008

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Pupils are failing to take enjoyment out of learning because of the pressure of a "tick-box culture", a private school leader will suggest today.

Incoming chairman of the Independent Association of Prep Schools Diana Watkins is due to tell its annual conference that teachers' knowledge that they are being judged on their pupils' exam results is having a detrimental effect on education, the Independent reports.

The paper reports her as stating: "It is ironic that we encourage our children to question the world in which they live and to have inquiring minds, [but] we are not empowering teachers to do the same."

She will call for teachers to have greater autonomy in the classroom, in a bid to steer them away from "teaching to the test".

Criticism of this was also raised by Ofsted last week, when it argued that many pupils are failing to gain an understanding of maths because teachers are too concerned with teaching what will come up in exams.