Following a successful ballot of both unions’ leadership members, the NUT and NAHT executives have decided that the boycott of this year’s SATs will go ahead.

Clear majorities in both unions voted to support action. The ballots focussed on leadership members because of the immediate impact on the terms and conditions of those members. This is categorically not strike action. Schools will be open and children will be taught.

Members taking industrial action will not administer the 2010 SATs. SATs are scheduled to take place in schools from 10 – 13 May.

SATs in their current form disrupt the learning process for children in Year 6, and are misused to compile meaningless league tables which only serve to humiliate and demean children, their teachers and their communities. The NUT and NAHT are supportive of a system of assessment that highlights what children can do rather than focussing on failure.

Christine Blower, General Secretary of the NUT, said:

"I am very pleased that we have reached this decision. Not only are we boycotting SATs but we are saying to schools that this is finally the opportunity to do the exciting things you always really wanted to be doing in the classroom. We can make sure SATs week is a really brilliant week, a creative week, which is what we would want every single week of the year to be”.

Mick Brookes, General Secretary of the NAHT, said:

“The Government missed the opportunity to reform the assessment for pupils in Key Stage 2 when they abolished the same tests in Key Stage 3 in 2008. We cannot continue to have our colleagues and their school communities in the Primary sector disparaged on the basis of a flawed testing regime. We guarantee that children in Year 6 will leave with accurate information about their achievements that will be both broad and positive.

“We are determined, for all the right reasons, to see positive change. This protest is a significant mark of that determination.”