OFSTED`s suggestion to overcoming exam anxiety: don`t tell children they are actually taking a test

Ofsted`s suggestion to overcoming exam anxiety: don`t tell children they are actually taking a test.

Examinophobia, the fear of taking exams, is now a recognised medical condition. Also called testophobia, or exam fever, the condition is said to affect tens of thousands of pupils across the United Kingdom. The condition manifests itself as an overwhelming anxiety that descends upon a student just before, or actually during an exam. It afflicts some pupils so strongly that they simply cannot enter the exam hall, while for others it prevents them thinking lucidly during the test.

This is a condition that probably everyone suffers from to some degree - very few people actually like taking exams, it`s hard to imagine the experience leaves anyone indifferent or complacent, knowing that the answers they provide during the next hour or two may very well shape the whole course of their life. A little fear is probably a good thing, as it compels you to take the examinations seriously - but if you are so nervous that you are unable to think clearly, you obviously won`t perform your best, and the grade you finally receive will be no reflection of your true ability.

There are many techniques people employ to try to combat exam anxiety - a common one is to simply take more tests, to face the fear directly, and try to attenuate the condition of examinophobia through over exposure. Some schools will set their pupils past exam papers, having them sit the tests under proper exam conditions. In this way the pupils will become accustomed to the experience of sitting in silence, and taking a timed exam. If their schools do not provide the facility, many pupils will take the initiative, and acquire the past papers themselves, and sit the exam at home under strict conditions.

An Ofsted chief has recently suggested a novel way to deal with exam fear, specifically the anxiety young children have when sitting their Sats. Amanda Spielman, Ofsted`s Chief Inspecter, has said that children should not even be told they are sitting the exam. In this way presumably the children will treat the test as just another classroom exercise, and their anxieties will not be triggered.

She has even gone so far as to say that teachers should not talk about the exams at all, at any point during lessons, for fear of triggering anxious children. Tens of thousands of children took their Sats last week. The name stands for Statutory Assessment Tests, but they are more generally known as Standards and Testing Agency tests. They are designed to track a child`s progress throughout their schooling, and were introduced between 1991 and 1995, shortly after the National Curriculum was rolled out.

Many people have called for the tests to be stopped, and The SATs for 7 year olds are actually in line to be abolished in 2023. Ms Spielman doesn`t believe all formal assessments for primary school pupils should be stopped, and her comments were presumably aimed to defend the continuation of testing young pupils.

`Good primary schools manage to run key stage tests often with children not even knowing that they`re being tested,` the Ofsted Chief said.

`I was in a primary school not long ago where I saw something that did concern me, where the head was going around clapping the year sixes on the shoulder saying `so are you feeling ok about the test, is everything going well for you?` I thought actually maybe that is well-meaning, but maybe that`s actually subliminally encouraging children to feel anxious. So there is something really important about how we do these things.`

There is a growing feeling that primary school pupils are being put under too much pressure, that they are developing a host of psychological problems due to the stress and apprehension of taking important examinations at such a young age. Labour have promised to abolish Sats exams completely, along with scrapping the baseline examinations that four years olds currently take when entering primary school. Jeremy Corbyn is reportedly extremely concerned about the unhealthy levels of stress young children face at school, and has vowed to end the `regime of extreme pressure testing.`