Educational Assessment System Reform

Steve Witherden Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.

Before being elected, I spent nearly two decades as a teacher. I know all too well the realities of working in a system that prioritises teaching to the test at the expense of a creative curriculum, broader educational experiences and, most importantly, pupil wellbeing.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for education, I recently led an inquiry into the loss of love of learning. It found that current assessment practices have a significant impact on students’ engagement with, and attitudes towards, learning. One submission highlighted that a system which frames learning through a lens of student deficit rather than progress ultimately ends up demotivating learners and narrowing their sense of possibility. When education is reduced to a means of securing exam results, we lose the intrinsic joy and value of learning itself.

One of the most powerful moments during the inquiry came when a group of primary school children from Wales visited Parliament to give evidence. They were genuinely surprised and, frankly, horrified to learn about the pressure and stress their peers in England face when preparing for SATs—and they were right to be shocked. In England, SATs preparation dominates much of the year 6 curriculum, leaving little room for creativity, exploration or deeper understanding.

Research from More Than a Score found that over three quarters of parents believe that SATs have a detrimental impact on their child’s mental health. More than a third reported that their children were not sleeping properly in the run-up to the exams. Of course, that pressure does not end in primary school. GCSEs and A-levels occupy multiple years of a young person’s life and subject them to immense stress.

According to YoungMinds, pupils sitting their exams last summer reported elevated levels of anxiety, self-harm and even suicidal thoughts. Current systems also disproportionately disadvantage pupils with special educational needs and disabilities—or additional learning needs, as they are known in Wales—as well as those experiencing mental health issues or growing up in a socioeconomically disadvantaged circumstance.

[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful for what the hon. Member is saying. As well as widening inequality through the current assessment system, which we know occurs, does he not agree that it also stifles social mobility, holding many young people back from the opportunities they could have?

[Steve Witherden]

Yes, I agree 100%.

In 2025, more than 75% of pupils with SEND and over 90% of those with an education, health and care plan did not meet expected standards in their end-of-primary SATs. Many carry that label of failure into secondary school before they have even had the chance to flourish. As someone who is dyslexic, dyscalculic and was functionally illiterate until the age of 11, I know what it feels like to struggle within a system not designed for people like me.

Teachers in schools serving deprived communities consistently report higher levels of pupil anxiety and disengagement related to SATs, compared with their counterparts in more affluent areas. The current high-stakes, one-size-fits-all model is not only outdated; it actively perpetuates inequality. Like Wales, England should abolish SATs. They damage children’s mental health, impose unnecessary stress at a formative age and fail to serve as reliable indicators of pupil or school performance.

At GCSE and A-level, we must reduce our dependence on high-stakes, end-of-course exams or on-demand online assessments, which give pupils—particularly those who struggle under timed conditions—greater opportunity to succeed. For far too long, education policy has been shaped by an obsession with measurable outcomes, too often at the expense of the very learners who most need our support.

I look forward to the final report of the curriculum and assessment review and urge the Government to respond with both ambition and compassion. Let us move beyond high-stakes learning, reduce anxiety in our classrooms, and above all, restore joy, creativity and a love of learning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Saqib Bhatti]

I will address that question in one second. As the interim report said, students relish the chance to demonstrate their knowledge and capabilities, despite the stress of exams. I was moved by the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He talks about panic attacks, and other people have talked about mental health and wellbeing, so let me be clear: if those things are observed and not accommodated by the current system, Opposition Members will happily look at suggestions and work on a cross-party basis, if we believe that that will improve the system while also protecting our children.

If the Government really want to tackle the challenges affecting student mental health on a day-to-day basis, we have been clear: this is not just about exam season, and we think that banning phones from schools would do far more to relieve many of the social pressures that face young people, and allow them to focus on their educational needs instead. I welcome support from the Government Benches for a proven mechanism that clearly leads to addressing students’ mental health. After speaking to teachers and other stakeholders we are clear about the positive impact that banning mobile phones would have on mental health—[Interruption.] I am happy to take a positive intervention on that.

It is deeply disappointing, if unfortunately not too surprising, that this seems to be the direction that the Government are taking with our education system, given the appalling record of their colleagues in the Welsh Government on education. Even the most disadvantaged children in England achieve better educational outcomes than the average student in Wales, thanks to the Welsh Government choosing ideology over evidence, and it is the students who suffer in the long term.

[Steve Witherden]

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that if we narrow the curriculum, take out the music and drama lessons, fill the curriculum and stack it to the rafters with numeracy and literacy-heavy subjects, all the pedagogies, and teach to the test, with exams, exams, exams, that will lead to better PISA results but not necessarily to better mental health for the students in the system?

[Saqib Bhatti]

Let me address that point directly. First, I am not sure that narrowing the curriculum to that degree would lead to better PISA results. I think the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) spoke about that, and I was nodding my head. I agree that we should have those investments in music that the Government have not committed to—[Interruption.] Let me finish, because it is important to recognise for the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden)—hopefully I have got his constituency right—that Wales, which is run by Labour, has much lower standards. That means less positive outcomes for children, which means less positive outcomes in the rest of their life. It is clear that those children are being let down by Welsh Labour.

We want extracurricular activities. That is why, when I visited Coppice academy in my constituency, which also has a forest school, I was heartened to see all the work that the kids are doing in those schools. Narrowing the curriculum is not what we are talking about. We are talking about something that is wholly rounded, but we must have a standardised and anonymised test system that allows a better level playing field for people from any background to be able to challenge and to thrive in life.

Let me return to the topic at hand. It is almost a month to the day that I welcomed the Minister to her seat, and we had a fantastically packed Chamber where we addressed special educational needs. I wrote to her after that debate, but I have still not had a response. Perhaps she could provide some clarity on the schools White Paper, say what will happen with the SEND reforms and also the curriculum review—I look forward to hearing from her on that, perhaps when she winds up the debate.

The world’s best-performing educational systems test to ensure that all students have a strong grasp of reading, writing and arithmetic in their early years, setting up children for future success at the earliest opportunity in their education. The widespread adoption of phonics testing in year 1 in England has seen English pupils rise up the international league tables, while the Welsh Government’s blind adherence to the widely discredited cueing method and its rejection of phonics testing has seen thousands of Welsh pupils leaving primary school effectively unable to read. Students and parents alike have plentiful cause for concern if that is the sort of education system that the Government want to create in England. I hope that the Minister can wholeheartedly reject the Welsh educational system—one in which thorough assessment of students’ progress has been replaced with a union-influenced aversion to testing in any form.

If the Government do go ahead with banning exams in favour of coursework and formal assessments, they could undermine every major achievement of our education system over the last decade and a half. Academies have changed the lives of their students through the initiative of their leadership. They are already being deprived of the freedoms that they have been used to in leading the way to school improvement and providing a knowledge-rich curriculum that has given every student the opportunity to access quality academic education. That is already being threatened with being dumbed down. If that were to happen, our education system would be left in an even sorrier state.

I hope that the Ministers listen to the views of students and parents. The Conservatives reformed education, and by the time we left, it was one of the best systems in the world. I hope we can keep it that way.