CYP Now - Vox pop - Is the education system too focused on test results?

A Children, Schools and Families Select Committee report last week warned that the current exams system is harming pupils' broader education and prompting schools to focus their teaching purely on raising results.

YES - Mick Brookes, general secretary, National Association of Head Teachers

It is the culture in which schools are working, but there are far more intelligent ways forward.

Let's have low-stakes testing, but at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 level Sats let's use the knowledge teachers have acquired.

If you test a narrow area of the curriculum and inspect a narrow area of the curriculum, the result is that you have a narrow curriculum - this is not very attractive to children and turns them off education.

YES - Philip Parkin, general secretary, Voice

A Voice survey revealed that young people can suffer from stress, anxiety and even illness as a result of examination pressures.

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