Now Balls faces teacher strike if Sats are scrapped

CHILDREN'S Secretary Ed Balls faces more trouble over his plans for Sats testing as a teaching union threatened industrial action if he scraps the exams.

Members of the NASUWT fear any replacement for the tests taken by 600,000 primary school children every year will add to their workload.

The threat leaves Mr Balls in an impossible situation, coming days after the NUT voted to boycott Sats if he refuses to abolish the tests.

Mr Balls abolished Sats for 14-year olds after last year's fiasco in which results across England were delayed. He has said he will reform the tests for 11-year olds after seeing recommendations from education advisers, due in the next few weeks.

One option is to replace Sats in English, maths and science with shorter tests taken when teachers think individual children are ready, instead of at the fixed age of 11.

Teachers fear this will increase the number of tests, placing a burden on schools, putting children under more pressure and reducing the opportunity to study other subjects such as art or history.

A motion threatening industrial action is being considered at the NASUWT conference in Bournemouth. Proposing it, Kathy Duggan, a primary school teacher from Lewisham, said: "If Sats were to be scrapped and in their place we had a workload heavy regime of assessment then we would want to take industrial action."

Mr Balls has said: "We want to look at what changes are needed but we are not going to go back to a situation where there was no information to parents on the progress of schools and children."