Schools Secretary urges schools to suspend primary school heads that refuse to run SATs

The Schools Secretary Ed Balls has written to school governing bodies asking them to suspend headteachers that plan to take part in the planned boycott of this year's SATS, which are set to begin on 10th May.

The letter, which was sent yesterday (28th April), also warned governers that they had a duty to ensure that the tests are conducted and asked them to find competant replacements to oversee the examinations in the event that the headteacher was refusing to.

The letter, reads: “If necessary, you may consider whether to instruct the headteacher to remain absent from school at times when the tests are due to take place while another person administers the tests."

However, Christine Blower the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), which has been leading the campaign to boycott SATs for primary school children, argued that only “legally competant” people to supervise the tests were headteachers and leadership group members. She also said that it would be unlawful to suspend headteachers in the way that Ed Balls suggested.

She said:  "The advice is misguided. It suggests that governing bodies should ask head teachers to stay at home, but employers can only suspend in accordance with disciplinary procedures. There would be absolutely no reason for this. It would seriously damage relationships between heads and governors and it is a very foolish thing for government to suggest.”

In April 16, leadership members of both the NUT and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) voted to boycott this year's SATs, although the days on which the tests were held would not be classified as strike days and that their senior members would otherwise work as normal.

At the time, the unions said: “SATs in their current form disrupt the learning process for children in Year 6, and are misused to compile meaningless league tables which only serve to humiliate and demean children, their teachers and their communities. The NUT and NAHT are supportive of a system of assessment that highlights what children can do rather than focussing on failure.”