‘Play’ now four-letter word, say head teachers
By Graeme Paton, Education Correspondent
Last Updated: 6:11am BST 05/05/2007

**snip**
Head teachers warned yesterday that “play” had become “a four-letter word” in schools as children are forced to spend hours being drilled for tests.

In an attack on the education system under 10 years of Labour, they warned that pupils as young as five were having their confidence shattered by the target-driven culture in English schools.

The National Association of Head Teachers said that increasing numbers of children were playing truant and sinking into depression after being branded a “failure” when they slipped up in national tests.

It is the latest in a series of assaults on the level of bureaucracy and high-stakes examinations, which teachers say have soared in the past decade.

**snip**
The union warned that high-pressure tests for 11-year-olds and GCSEs “humiliated” large numbers of children and branded them as failures. It has set up its own inquiry into testing and league tables.

‘Exam-factory schools prompt crime’

**snip**
The Government’s relentless focus on testing children and imposing targets on schools has made children unhappy, disaffected, and failed to give them a real education, he said.

**snip**
“For all the splendid intentions, the rising test and exam scores and the extra money, it has to be said that his Government has done quite a lot of harm.

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“Schools have been reduced almost to factories for producing test and exam scores.

Heads warn of ‘factory’ schools              

By Graeme Paton
05/05/2007

**snip**
The Government’s “obsession” with testing is damaging education and turning young people into “fodder for statistical bean counting”, according to the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT).

**snip**
The NAHT, the country’s biggest headteachers’ union, will warn at its annual conference, which commences in Bournemouth today, that children are no long able to enjoy their schooldays because of the number of targets they must meet between the ages of five and 16. (end of snips)

(HT: Ed News )

Over at “Dare to Know” , Carlotta does a great job in keeping up with homeschooling news in the UK.