NO BOOK in recent years has made quite the same impact on the education sector as this extraordinary volume. It is going to be quoted for generations to come.
Sammy Wright is a gifted writer, with one published award-winning novel already to his name. He is not against exams per se, as some commentators have assumed. What he sees as wrong is the way in which exams have been used, stretching back 40 years. “What ought to be a tool for learning, has become a tool for assigning worth.” In effect, a useful tool has become a distorting tool.
No event in the past century illustrated that truth better than the farce of the Covid algorithm in 2020, when teacher-assessed grades were used. The author describes the “stunned fury” in his school when the grades in a socially deprived area of the north-east had been downgraded. Why had it happened? The methodology used was to rank the 2020 cohort purely in terms of the school’s previous performance: no consideration of whether the school had improved, or whether individual students had performed exceptionally well. While it was soon abandoned, as far as Wright is concerned, it laid bare the whole purpose of the exam system. The cat was out of the bag. Is this really what school is for? Meanwhile, for education insiders, the technical terminology is all here. SATS, EBacc, Progress 8, EPQ, and the rest.
It is the second section of the book which has drawn it to the attention of a far wider audience. What is school really like? His account is by turns funny, angry about the evident unfairness, inspiring about teaching as a career, and brutally honest. Be prepared for some salty language, and what he calls “the grubby reality” of school life.
He uses his daily conversations with his students, both in London and the north-east. Names are changed; safeguarding is scrupulously observed. Benny is 11. His childhood has been one of grinding poverty and regular disruption. Clever, but inattentive. Gets into fights. His path to adulthood is a narrow one. Wright’s verdict is memorable: “For Benny school is the least of his worries, and his only hope.”
Teachers also will love how this author unerringly points to those arcane issues, beloved of the best of sketch-writers. Why is wearing a hoodie over your blazer on a cold November day seen as sensible, and wearing the same garment under your blazer a sign of rebellion?
In his final section, Wright offers some positive suggestions for change. The whole treadmill from SATS through to GCSE could become instead a Passport Qualification, which also would include Personal Development, assessed at the age of 15. The current system, based on the premiss that university entrance is the end goal from the age of five onwards, is rapidly becoming dated. Fees and soaring debt are seeing to that. SATS have already been slimmed down. Why not, when 11-year-olds are expected to know whether “after” is a preposition or a subordinating conjunction? What chance does Benny have with a question like that — especially when Nick Gibb, the former Schools Minister, got the answer wrong.
And, just in case there are serving teachers reading this, here are Sammy’s words for you: “With each year following the rhythm of the last, and of Christmas creeping up on you like the ghost of Christmas never to come.” Be of good heart. Sammy has your back. The book is a brilliant read from start to finish.
Dennis Richards is a former head of St Aidan’s C of E High School, Harrogate, in North Yorkshire.
Exam Nation: Why our obsession with grades fails everyone — and a better way to think about school
Sammy Wright
Bodley Head £22
(978-1-84792-752-1)
Church Times Bookshop £19.80