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Speaker 1: Change also coming to education from next year. We're testing

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Speaker 1: new entrants on phonics twice a year. We test years

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Speaker 1: three through eight on reading, writing, and math. Sixty percent

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Speaker 1: of schools already used testing, but it's not consistent and

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Speaker 1: we are not using the results how we should, apparently

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Speaker 1: according to the government. May Road School principal Linda Stewart's

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Speaker 1: with us on.

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Speaker 2: All of this.

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Speaker 1: Linda Morning, Good morning, Mike. You do test, first of all,

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Speaker 1: Why do you test in other schools? Don't?

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Speaker 2: I think? I think schools do test. I think they're

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Speaker 2: assessing all the time. There is a difference between those

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Speaker 2: formal standardized testing mechanisms, which is what has been talked

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Speaker 2: about at the moment, and the ongoing assessment that teachers

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Speaker 2: are doing every day in their class thrones. I think

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Speaker 2: schools are during those assessments. What we're seeing is our

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Speaker 2: schools are actually crying out for supports so they know

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Speaker 2: which students are struggling. And I heard them minister last

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Speaker 2: night say that this was in order to find out

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Speaker 2: which students are struggling in our schools. Schools already know

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Speaker 2: who the children are. What we're doing is we're crying

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Speaker 2: out for those resources to help our children who are

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Speaker 2: struggling with their learning.

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Speaker 1: Do you buy into the consistency argument of everyone does

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Speaker 1: one of the two tests, you get a universal picture,

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Speaker 1: and that gives us a better insight into where we're at.

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Speaker 2: I think the issue with those assessments is that we

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Speaker 2: don't and I'm speaking as a principle of my own

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Speaker 2: school at the moment, we don't test every child with

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Speaker 2: ESTEL from Y three to YES six, nor do we

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Speaker 2: test every child for pat We know that there are

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Speaker 2: some children for whom those tests are simply not appropriate.

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Speaker 2: They either have English as a second language, so they're

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Speaker 2: going to struggle. We know that they need to support

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Speaker 2: in English. It may be that we need to scaffold

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Speaker 2: some children into assessments because they have high anxiety. There

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Speaker 2: are a number of reasons that teachers and principles decide

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Speaker 2: that there are specific children who will not benefit from

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Speaker 2: the process of going through an assessment like that, and

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Speaker 2: I think saying that it is mandatory takes it away

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Speaker 2: from the professionalism of the teacher or the principle.

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Speaker 1: All right, Linda, appreciate your time. Linda Stuart. You can

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Speaker 1: hear the ideological difference between what we've got and what

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Speaker 1: we're aiming for. Can't you For more from the My

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Speaker 1: Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks it'd be from

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Speaker 1: six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio