the primary league tables have been published today. This is how we report primary school performance as a country: essentially, a single percentage generated from student achievements in tests on reading and maths, and teacher assessment of their skills in writing. We collect other data, but this is the headline that dominates reporting.
We've seen the price you pay when you measure schools mainly on test results. It happened in Birmingham this year. Ministers used to be fond of claiming that schools who do well in tests also do well in the broader curriculum and character building. Trojan Horse brought that claim crashing down.
At least secondary schools are measured across a broad range of exams, many of which have multiple papers lasting several hours, taken by hundreds of students. Primary schools are essentially measured on two subjects, taken in what amounts to about three hours of tests for the entire academic year, in many cases by fewer than thirty pupils.
It is a fundamental truth of organisational life that you get what you measure. If you measure just two things, from all the many aspirations and goals we have in education, if you make the stakes so high that failure spells disaster, then the potential for distortion is huge.
Basic skills matter of course. I wanted my son and I want my daughter to leave primary school able to read fluently and solve maths problems confidently. I got exactly that from their fantastic local state school. I also wanted them to play sport, learn a musical instrument, get on well with other children and learn about the wide world around them. I value all of that.