As parents consider withdrawing primary school children from Sats exams, it’s time to ask: Are Tories bad for our mental health?
It seems the Conservatives have a ‘whole life’ attitude to mental illness – they want to create it in the young and worsen it as we get older.
How else are we to explain the concerns about school pupils’ mental health, due to the pressure being piled on them by the state-run system?
We can see that Tory employment policy seems intended to continue this pressure into the world of work, forcing school leavers into poorly-paid, stress-filled employment.
This, itself, is madness.
Pushing people until they crack is not a sign of a good system; it betrays one that is self-destructively exploitative.
Under this kind of system, more and more people will have to retire from work to seek medical help. Who will care for them? And who will be left to prop up the economy as it sags under the weight of the unwell.
Not the wealthy – we already know the vast majority of the rich are idle – especially those in government.
Parents across the country are preparing to withdraw their 10 and 11-year-olds from tests over concerns about their mental health.
Families are becoming increasingly worried about the number of practice papers and revision classes that Year 6 children face during the Easter holidays, The Independent understands.
Thousands of parents have downloaded a letter which sets out plans to stop their children from taking the Sats exams next month because of the “pressures of a high stakes testing system”.
It comes as teaching unions warned about the “damaging” impact of assessments in primary school.
Just last week, the National Education Union (NUT section) voted to explore ways of disrupting the pilots of the government’s new literacy and numeracy tests for four-year-olds.
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Basically, apart from a few millionaires, the Tories hate just about everyone in society.
Absolutely spot on lol.
I did SAT’s I didn’t really care what I got, I think I was too young to bother. But what has changed between now and then is the pushing to do well. I ended up in the lowest set in school though, because of my SAT’s. Two years later they put me the higher sets because they had so misjudged me on my SAT’s. I think as well as causing unnecessary stress. I don’t really thin there is a point to them and it would be better if the teachers assessed the children in the class room in the child’s natural state and behavior, to see what help they need.
An oppressed society is a passive one, that is the whole objective of these vile Tories.
R they fit to work or be confident, self sufficient and function in a difficult and demanding world?
Many children are leaving school without the most basic of skills and sent into life unprepared to be meat. Employers saying school leavers and college leavers totally not prepared.
I have no problem with work or even menial and lower class work as long as it pays and you have a laugh and social companionship no problem Wish socialists would not down play work, somebody has to do it, or nobody would have anything. cannot all be counsellors, social professionals and uppie coffee shop owners.
“We are an exclusive gourmet establishment catering for a better type of taste and educated clientele”
You are a Burger Joint Mate, an Overpriced One, and you missus with your snooty snoty plummy voice are a waitress serving coffees.
Someone has to do the real work I dont mind as long as it pays. Now it does not. and fixing employment at fixed hours at minimum wage plunged everyone into poverty, so low waged people begged to be put on contract or went and found extra work and worked 3-4 jobs back to back 7 days a week. Well Done Labour and Socialists Unions and EU. Lets put that myth to bed.
Even so Children leaving school with the skills and mentality of 5 year oldsJave not the dexterity or flexibility or cleverness of previous low paid generations.
School, and adults and parents are there for one reason, and that is to prepare and bring up children so they can cope and manage and be able to be independent adults.
Our school system and society and government has let everyone down and wasted children’s lives and development for last few generations.
Less skill and aptitude to manage in a difficult and demanding world than generations before. WE ARE STUFFED! if nobody takes this up and changes it.
Why do you suggest socialists play down work?
Socialists, generally, ARE the workers.
No, the minimum wage didn’t plunge everyone into poverty. Let’s put THAT ignorant myth to bed! If you want to think about real poverty, consider what the Tories would be doing now, without the minimum wage.
SO THEY SHOULD TOO (PARENTS WITHDRAW KIDS FROM TAKING SATS… since when have 4 year olds who have barely set foot over the entrance door into school , been expected to take exams? poor little devils.. its a traumatic event at best is starting school. some kids could be put off school for good being forced to take exams so early. have long since thought its much better to use the kids performances over the previous term/month/year etc any or all of those to determine how well they are doing. surely they will be more relaxed that way instead of being on edge, some to breaking point, at the thought of DOING the exams let alone waiting for results (i know from when i did my 11+ all those years ago and 7 years later my first nursing preliminary exam (followed by other exams over the next 4-5 years., how nerve wracking it can be. more so i imagine for younger kids that are little more than toddlers ( still almost babies)
I’m not convinced by the idea of using performance over the previous period of time. When I was in senior school, I was held back from the top English class, despite coming first in the exams (my teacher subsequently marked me down to second – didn’t like that at all), because I hadn’t done very well during term time. I had been BORED.
you learn much more after you leave school than while your there. sitting behind a desk having stuff drilled into you (because a teacher knows his stuff etc so talking to you and telling you things is teaching………. i learnt better by writing things down. a few times if i needed to. so seeing the written word imprinted itself on my brain..) Field trips taught me and my kids more than any teacher could tell them about their environment and their own area’s history (Yorkshire..West Yorkshire in particular)…. a teacher who taught the last year of junior school told me that he couldn’t teach my kids any of that stuff because we had done it for him. we had used weekends in summer to take them to every kind of museum, mansion house that was open to the public, park/swimming/ made arrangements to be taken through a dam wall and taught about how we got our water, what happened inside that thick wall.etc… a farm holiday where they had their own chores to do daily. everything was a learning curve but done in a way that kept their interest going.
(I dont know if that was praise from that teacher or him being disgruntled cos we had done him out of a job as far as my kids were concerned.lol…..we took as praise though,.
A friends daughter got her degree and became a teacher after a year she left the profession and she told me teachers are there to look after children while there parents are at work not to teach them that’s one of the reason there are that many teaching assistants that’s why there are more illiteracy as gone up and numeracy as gone down but as Churchill said teaching the working class is dangerous
You do have a point.
During Easter an ex headmaster from Harrow suggested kids do 7 hours a day in the hollidays and Esther McVey suggested Saturday jobs for the young – thank you BBC for those articles !
An Absolute YES THEY ARE.
Tories are bad for our mental and physical health yes, but also bad for every aspect of our lives now , unless you happen to be fit, Tory and loads of daddies money in your bank account.