Targets not tests are bad for children

So headteachers are boycotting Sats. Pity they didn't just boycott teaching to the test from the start. When I was at school, we were tested every year, by our teachers. There was no coaching, no distorting lessons so the school's results would look good; just a useful check on how we had been doing, so the teachers would know exactly who was where with what. It is not the tests that headteachers should be boycotting, it is the slavish emphasis on drilling children to be prepared for them. Tests don't hurt children. But the way they are prepared for them – as little automatons whose correct answers will please the government – sure as hell does.