{"id":234122,"date":"2025-09-03T17:16:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/?p=234122"},"modified":"2025-09-03T17:21:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:21:32","slug":"year-6-cant-keep-paying-the-price-of-data-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/year-6-cant-keep-paying-the-price-of-data-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"Year 6 can\u2019t keep paying the price of data farming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The start of Year 6 should be a time of excitement, leadership and growing confidence. Yet, as a headteacher of ten years and a previous Year 6 teacher for many years, I know that for too many children it will be dominated not by opportunity but by pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By July 2026, I will watch them leave for secondary school and Year 7. Some will stride out ready for the challenges ahead. But others (too often boys, pupils with special educational needs and those facing disadvantage) will walk away already carrying the weight of disengagement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We like to think the system has prepared them, but the truth is that the final years of primary school are increasingly dominated by data farming. Instead of being seen as children in their own right, Year 6 pupils are often treated as walking sets of results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The irony is that the very children who most need to feel a sense of belonging are those most likely to feel like they do not measure up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone who has experienced anxiety since childhood, I know first-hand the impact of being told, subtly or bluntly, that you are not enough. I remember vividly how exams and tests made me feel like an imposter. That same sense of failure still cripples far too many children today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conversation about boys in education is often reductive. We are told they are easily distracted or immature, but in reality many boys mask their struggles. They may be energetic, resistant or even disruptive, but scratch beneath the surface and you will find anxiety, fear of failure and disconnection from a curriculum that does not feel designed for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True, this is not only a boys\u2019 issue; many girls mask too. But it is boys who statistically disengage at scale and who disappear from our system in worrying numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Our data-driven culture is squeezing out belonging<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If we are serious about inclusion, we must start by asking ourselves a simple question: who feels at home in our schools? Not just who passes, who scores well or who behaves. Who belongs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because our data-driven culture is squeezing out play, creativity and the very things that make childhood joyful and build belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Primary schools should be places where curiosity is nurtured, not curtailed. Year 6 should be a year of leadership, confidence and celebration, not exhaustion and cramming. If we want children to succeed in secondary, we need to stop seeing the end of primary as a final sorting exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is hope. Across the country, many schools are building cultures that value play, holistic assessment and relationships as much as results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These schools do not ignore standards; they achieve them by putting belonging first. When children feel seen, safe and valued, their outcomes follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But policy still lags behind. We remain locked in a twentieth-century model of assessment in a twenty-first century world, with school leaders caught between accountability systems and our moral purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I understand the need for rigour and fairness, but fairness should mean every child has the chance to shine, not that we make them all sit the same narrow test and label them according to its outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why the current curriculum and assessment review matters so much. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape education so it works for every child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the pace of change cannot be timid. Evolution<\/a> is too slow. What we need is revolution. If we are serious about building an education system that values belonging as much as attainment, it is going to take bold decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sure many will have said so in their consultation responses, and I hope Becky Francis and her panel haver heard them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the autumn term begins and the review\u2019s final report looms, we owe it to every child starting Year 6 not just to prepare them for a test but for a thriving future. If we fail to do so, we will keep waving them off in July knowing, deep down, that some are already slipping away from education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And once they are lost, it is so much harder to win them back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The best thing the curriculum review can do to re-engage pupils is to rethink the incentives driving an impoverished and exclusionary primary offer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311124,"featured_media":204117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"post-theme":[3550],"class_list":["post-234122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","post-theme-opinion-curriculum-review"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t