This is my letter, published in the November 7th edition of the Times Educational Supplement on the decision by some schools to cancel bookings with theatre groups because they no longer had to do Shakespeare tests with fourteen year old pupils.
Dear TES,
Nothing sums up the philistine madness of the SATs regime better than your story on touring Shakespeare companies losing work because of the abolition of the KS3 tests. It seems that we have reduced some of our schools to such a state of utilitarian myopia that tracking and testing has become their sole raison d’etre.
Now I can think of many reasons to have a theatre group in school performing Shakespeare. When I was teaching in Liverpool, we invited Black Box theatre group in every year, and we were a primary school with no pressure to teach the Bard. These magical afternoons introduced our youngsters to the high drama, the spills and thrills, the intrigues, mirth and tragedy of our greatest literary figure. They extended our pupils’ spiritual and moral horizons. Most of all, they entertained.
Do we really need to stick pointless objectives on such a rich cultural experience? Great art is its own validation. As to the SATs, validation have they none. Let’s celebrate the passing of the KS3 beast and go on to slay the KS1 and KS2 dragons.
Once more unto the breech!
Yours faithfully,
Alan Gibbons
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