You are going to read a newspaper article on education. Read the text and answer the questions that follow. Decide whether each statement is True or False and provide your arguments drawn from the text to justify your choice. The proof should be given in your own words.
Compulsory national testing for four- and five-year-olds in England from 2016 is to be introduced as part of wide-ranging changes being proposed to early years and primary education.
The tests will take place in the first weeks of reception class, when most children will be aged four, and will be designed to give teachers and schools a clearer idea of each child’s abilities at the start of their formal schooling.
The tests are to be carefully crafted to estimate a child’s “baseline” abilities in very basic literacy, reasoning and cognition, rather than testing their knowledge as in a traditional examination.
To counter the likely criticism from parents, unions and academics concerned at the additional stress for pupils and teachers, the Department for Education (DfE) is likely to abolish the current key stage one tests that take place at the end of year two, when most pupils are aged seven. The timing of the “phonics check”, a test of reading progression that currently takes place at the end of year one, is also being reconsidered.
In addition, national tests for 11-year-olds are to be reformed to bring them better into line with the new national curriculum, with levels replaced by a new grading system. Plans to tell parents their child’s ranking have been quietly shelved after opposition.
The tests in reception and for 11-year-olds will allow the DfE to more accurately chart the progress from start to finish made by classes of pupils within each primary school.
But testing children at such a young age is fraught with difficulty and likely to be time consuming, given that the tests often need to take place on a one-to-one basis.
The timing of the tests will be difficult for children born in summer, given that they may start reception only a few weeks or even days after their fourth birthday – and so may struggle compared with children who may be nearly a year older.
Russell Hobby, head of the National Association of Head Teachers, which represents many primary school leaders, said he saw no problems with reception tests, providing they were carefully managed.
“The notion of testing four-year-olds in exam hall conditions is clearly ludicrous. A properly designed teacher assessment is the model here,” Hobby said. “The government needs to recognise that this is a step into the unknown. Although all primaries assess young children, these are not currently used for accountability, which changes everything. We call upon the government to pilot and evaluate any assessment before making any final commitments.”
News of the tests is likely to spark further controversy over the amount of testing that children face in England’s state schools.
1-5. Choose whether the statements are True (T) or False (F) and, to justify your choice, provide your proof from the text in your own words.
Example : (0) The statement is true because the narrator has never read a single book in the original and has not demonstrated any interest in the subject.
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1. Primary schools in Great Britain will start testing four-year-old pupils shortly after admitting them to the reception class in 2016 only if parents and teachers find it necessary.
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2. The Ministry for Education will alter the regulations on later tests in primary school to create a more balanced situation.
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3. Testing young children in primary school is going to be quite challenging from an organisational perspective.
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4. The proposed system of assessing reception class pupils carries a risk of failure.
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5. It is expected that society will respond favourably to the initiative of early testing in primary schools.
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