I don’t have to put on rose-tinted spectacles to remember my time at primary school as an inspiring, creative and explorative time in my life. The school was named after Zachary Macaulay, the slavery abolitionist. Looking back on my years at that school, it’s so clear to me how the legacy of Macaulay flowed through the corridors. We were taught to question, to explore and to love.

This Monday I decided to see what education is like for children in primary school today – so I took a key stage 2 Sats paper. You won’t be surprised to hear that I came out of that experience feeling quite the opposite of inspired, creative and ready to explore. What I was surprised by was the anxiety the whole process caused me.

Now remember I had nothing to lose or gain from the test – apart from the inevitable ribbing I would have received in the media and from my own party colleagues if I had failed. Thankfully, I passed the English grammar, punctuation and spelling exam with 67/70, with a note from my marker to work on the subjunctive for a perfect score next time.

And yet the process of being examined, of having my efforts graded by someone else, of knowing I would have to share my results with you all today, made me stressed.

'Like robots on an assembly line'

If I feel like that, imagine how our kids feel? Imagine taking the one-hour test I sat on Monday and quadrupling it. Imagine starting that process aged just 6 or 7. Imagine that every year for the rest of your educational life. We are treating children like robots assembled on a factory line – is it any wonder that rates of anorexia, self-harm and depression amongst primary and secondary school pupils is on the rise?

It doesn’t have to be like this. We can turn our education system into a springboard for life, rather than a diving board into stress and anxiety. Children need space to learn and grow, and by giving them that, and making school a centre for learning and fun, the world around us will become a better and happier place

That’s why getting rid of Sats is a central part of our education policy.

Every day we trust the care of our children into the hands of teachers – we need to listen to them, and to parents, who are telling us that Sats place undue and unnecessary pressure on children. Three-quarters of primary school teachers and almost all secondary school teachers think exam periods drive children towards stress-related conditions. We need to heed these warnings and ask ourselves what kind of country we want our children to grow up in – and inherit. I know I want that to be a caring country that is bold enough to say that, actually, teachers know best how to teach. We have to listen to them when they say that we have to change the culture endemic in our education system: a culture that suggests a child’s worth can be gleaned from their exam scores.

This election campaign has confirmed what I already believed, that the Greens are the only party with a vision for an inspiring education system. Not just for smaller class sizes. Not just for the end of tuition fees. Not just better investment in local authority schools. All those things are great, but there’s no point tinkering around the edges of a system that is inflicting emotional harm on teachers and pupils alike. That’s a system unfit for purpose.

So if you, too, believe that we must listen to parents, teachers, and pupils, that we must change the culture of our education system and we must end the conveyor belt of testing that kids are subjected to, vote Green at this election.

Jonathan Bartley is co-leader of the Green Party. He tweets as @jon_bartley

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