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Study reveals stressed out 7-11 year-olds

Friday October 12, 2007

This Cambridge University report featured in all national newspapers and on the major news channels. Polly Curtis, education editor of The Guardian newspaper rported :

National tests for seven and 11-year-olds are putting children under stress and feeding into a "pervasive anxiety" about their lives and the world they are growing up in, according to an intimate portrait of primary school life published today.

Primary-aged children worry daily about global warming and terrorism as well as their friendships and passing the next exam, according to a report based on 700 in-depth interviews with children, their teachers and parents, which will feed into the biggest independent review of primary education in 40 years. The findings echo a report from Unicef which this year placed Britain at the bottom of a league table charting the well-being of children across the developed world. This week a survey by the Howard League for Penal Reform revealed that 95% of 10 to 15-year-olds in the country have experienced crime at least once.

Today's Cambridge University report, Community Soundings, says national tests leave most children stressed and some middle class parents paying for a "parallel" education system employing tutors to get children through their exams even before the age of 11. Some pupils said the tests were "scary" and made them nervous. "These findings do build up to a sense that important changes are needed within the primary sector," said Robin Alexander, a fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and a former professor of education at Leeds and Warwick, who is heading the Primary Review. Today's research will feed into the review, which reports in a year's time and is expected to have a significant influence on education policy. He said: "The surprise is that although we made considerable efforts to tap a wide range of opinions inside and outside of schools ... there was a large degree of consensus on what are the big issues."

Many adults questioned for the study voiced concerns over the influence of the media on children and pressures of consumerism while more suggested that they believed that there is a break down in family life and community. "The responses reveal a pervasive anxiety about the current educational and social contexts ... and a deeper pessimism about the world in which today's children are growing up," the report says.

The General Teaching Council for England opposes national tests for seven, 11 and 14-year-olds, the results of which are published in league tables and scrutinised by parents when choosing a school. Wales has scrapped them. Ministers in England are adamant that they will remain. Prof Alexander said the tests would be addressed in the review: "After what we've heard it would be perverse if we didn't do something on them," he said.

Comment

Parents, have you discussed these issues with your children? In the light of this report how do you view Mrs Coupe's decision for Year 6 children to undergo 9 hours of Maths teaching and 7 hours of English teaching each week in readiness for Sats exams ? Then an Easter holiday school being run by an authority adviser. Contact time between children and their teacher is at most 2 hours 30 minutes in the morning allowing for compulsory assemblies and morning break. Rarely do schools today have an afternoon break so children have on avergae another 2 hours 30 minutes in the afternoon, making a 5 hour day for the children. As the Government's literacy and numeracy schemes specify 5 hours per week of English, and 5 hours per week of Maths Mrs Coupe's routine increases this by 6 hours. That is 1 full day of school life + 1 hour. What has been lost through this ? Do you know what other schols do ? Are you happy that your child is receiving a full and balanced education ?

Read more at

The Primary Review http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/

The Full report http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Education/documents/2007/10/12/PrimaryReview.pdf

The Guardian Report http://education.guardian.co.uk/primaryeducation/story/0,,2189589,00.html