Ofsted, Secondary Assessment and Children's Mental Health

This morning's Education and Equalities Committee began with a discussion of children's mental health. In response to the DfE proposals on mental health 'first aid' training in schools, the NUT has used 'In Conversation' to discuss this with secondary school teachers. 88% of teachers surveyed thought that the number of students with complex mental health problems was increasing , whilst 67% didn't feel the pastoral support for students was sufficient.

A number of teachers reported positive approaches in their school towards addressing children's mental health and the committee agreed to seek to publicise some of these, whilst not ignoring the causes of increasing mental health problems amongst children and the inadequacy of funding for specialist services to address this.

Primary Assessment Consultation Continues

Much of this month's Education and Equalities Committee was spent discussing the NUT's strategy on primary assessment. With the recent House of Common's Select Committee Report and the Testing the Water report conducted on behalf of Pearson, not to mention our own Exam Factories report and The Mismeasurement of Learning by Reclaiming Schools, it is clear that the government cannot ignore the serious issues with primary assessment any longer.

They have opened a consultation on primary assessment and yet, far from improving the situation, the main recommendation of this consultation is the replacement of KS1 SATs with a compulsory baseline test at age 4. You can access and respond to the consultation here.

Opportunities to be Realised

On Wednesday, I delivered the political report and led discussion at the Education for Tomorrow editorial board. I focused on the opportunities presented by the possibility of a new union next week.

If ATL and NUT members vote yes to the creation of a new union, this will present us with a huge opportunity to build a stronger, more united voice for education workers, built on a foundation of greater engagement of members in workplaces up and down the country.