Search Mobile

collapse

already registered?

Please sign in with your existing account details.

Email address

Password

need to register?

Register to access exclusive content, sign up to receive our updates and personalise your experience on brownejacobson.com.

Privacy statement - Terms and conditions

Forgotten your password?

collapseSign

Browne Jacobson home

Education home

Insights

Blogs

Possible challenge to legality of SATs boycott

possible challenge to legality of SATs boycott

26 April 2010

Head teachers look set to boycott KS2 SATs for 10- and 11-year olds following a ballot by the NUT and NAHT.

Last week, the two unions confirmed that they would take industrial action against the tests, which pupils are due to sit in early May. Mick Brookes, general secretary of the NAHT, has said that KS2 SATs are “misused to compile meaningless league tables which only serve to humiliate and demean children, their teachers and communities.” However, the National Governance Association (NGA), has questioned the legality of any boycott. Clare Collins, Chair of the NGA, has said that industrial action “must be related to teachers’ terms and conditions”, but that SATs are “a performance measure, not a matter of their terms and conditions”.

With head teachers and governors seemingly at loggerheads, it seems highly likely that there will be a legal challenge to a SATs boycott, meaning that the courts will have the final say on this issue.

related opinions

School uniform under media spotlight

The new academic year has started with controversy over school uniform. Last week, a government inquiry heard evidence that costs for parents are being exacerbated by compulsory branded uniform, including clothing with school logos, and operating contractual arrangements for the supply of these items with single retailers.

View blog

Education Secretary confirms DfE 'backing' for exclusions

Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, has confirmed that head teachers who take “the decision to either suspend or expel a pupil because they need to do it in order to be able to enforce proper and full discipline in their school, and making sure that they're protecting the whole interests of the school, will always have my backing".

View blog

Welcome news for sixth form colleges looking to academise

The Government has accepted calls from sixth form colleges to reopen the option to become academies.

View blog

RSE guidance issued - but do teachers feel ready?

In our previous blog we updated you on the new requirements to teach relationships, health and sex education (elements of which are phase specific) which will become mandatory in September 2020.

View blog

View all blogs