Tests plan for Scottish schools revealed

Improving attainment in Scotland’s schools is the highest priority of the government’s programme of work for the coming year, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said.

In a speech setting out the Scottish government’s forthcoming legislation, Sturgeon said it would include a national system of standardised assessment in P1, P4, P7 and S3 to better assess literacy and numeracy.

Recent results from the 2014 Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy revealed the standard of Scottish children’s reading skills is falling.

"This is not about narrowing the curriculum or forcing teachers to teach to the test. It is not a return to the national testing of old," the First Minister told MSPs. "The assessments will inform teacher judgement not replace it."

National primary testing was abolished in 2003 by the Labour/Lib Dem coalition.

Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie warned the move was a return to the system of “school league tables and teach-to-the-test” his party had helped abolish.

But Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said it was “a welcome u-turn” on what her party had been calling for.

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said she welcomed the focus on attainment but the Government didn’t have a record to be proud of. “There is so much more we can do now. We can recognise that to improve literacy amongst children we have to improve literacy of mums, dads and primary carers. We can scrap fees for exam appeals so all young people who want it can get a fresh look at their grades,” she said.

Larry Flanagan, general secretary of teaching union the EIS said the First Minister was "not advocating a return to the failed high-stakes testing regime of the past".

The first draft of the National Improvement Framework for Scottish Education was published, which aims to reduce the gap in attainment between children from the most and least deprived areas.