Over the last few days, national newspapers have reported on comments made by a Sussex MP and Government Minister in front of a group of MPs on Thursday. The MP in question is Nick Gibb who is MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. The comments relate to the use of exams in schools and his view that we need to increase the number of such activities in order to help improve the mental wellbeing of children. According to one newspaper he “told a joint hearing of the Education and Health Committees today that exam pressure had always been a part of school life and had always led to anxiety among young people. He then suggested that getting children as young as 12 used to taking exams in school could help them to cope with the stress.” Such comments will not have shocked teachers who have kept an ear out for comments from senior politicians on the subject of education over the last 15 years. According to an entry in Wikipedia for Mr Gibb which referred to two of his Schools, Maidstone Grammar School and Thornes House School in Wakefield “In an interview regarding his education, Gibb spoke of how he believed Maidstone to be the best. What was good about it was that it was rigorous” he told Teacher TV in 2006. “Every lesson was rigorous, even things like music: it was taught in the same way as chemistry.” Wakefield, by contrast, was “terrible” due to its lack of rigour.

My own experience of exams has been very mixed and this continues to the present when I face the various tests I must take to maintain my professional status in the sectors I work in. I recall discussing exams with teachers at School who argued that they were a very poor way of assessing people’s ability but without a meaningful alternative there was not much that one could do to end their role. That was long before educational settings adopted or experimented with continuous assessment approaches. Clearly exams can present a quick and relatively low cost way of testing the short term memory and quick thinking of people who are well suited to such tests. However whilst such tests on a regular basis may work for some people, those people who find tests intimidating will not improve their comfort if they are faced with more tests and exams than at present. In scanning the Internet to verify the comments by Nick Gibb as presented on Wikipedia (something I was unable to do) I came across an American educational website on the subject of rigour, or rather rigor! The website stated “Rigor is understood in the educational arena as instruction that challenges a students ability to think.” The reality is that every student, just like every person thinks in a way that is unique to them. Effective teachers are capable of understanding these differences in their students and working hard to provide rigour for each student, ensuring that each one is challenged in an effective way. However such distinctions are beyond the grasp of even the best written exams as far as I understand the issue. To claim that music should be taught in the same was as chemistry raises all sort of concerns about the person who thinks like that and who has such power and influence on our educational system.

Nick has been a Minister for Schools since 2010 with a break from 2012 to 2014 and he was shadow Minister of Schools from 2005 – 2010 so he has held a senior position within the education team in the Tory Party for 11 of the last 13 years. It is not unreasonable to apply some rigour to an assessment of how good a job he has done over that time. The Government website lists the areas of responsibility that he holds. The first bullet point states “recruitment and retention of teachers and school leaders”. This is a task that is clearly lacking success, given the news that emerged over the last few days of how the numbers of teachers recruited has fallen short of the Governments own targets over the last five years and just as concerning, the numbers of teachers leaving the profession before they reach retirement age is much greater than expected. Two other areas are “curriculum, assessment and qualifications” and “children and young people’s mental health” I find it deeply concerning that the person who is responsible for both these areas is speaking out so blatantly as though presenting children struggling with anxiety with additional short sharp examination shocks will somehow address their anxieties. Let us hope that his new boss will soon address these appalling comments and his failure in other areas of departmental responsibility.