Last week there was a lot of talk by teachers, parents and MPs about bringing in national standards in primary schools. A national standard is a list of things that children must be able to do each year. Maybe the standard for year 1 is to be able to count to 100 by the end of the year. If the pupils can do this, they have reached the standard.

There are national standards already in schools but the difference will be that each school will need to send their results to the Ministry of Education. Schools will need to show how many pupils are below the standard, have reached the standard or are above the standard. Teachers are worried that the Ministry of Education will make these results public so that people can see that School A has more pupils who reach the standard than School B.

Primary schools will have to focus more literacy which means reading and writing, and numeracy which means arithmetic. Pupils will be tested in many ways. Sometimes the teacher does not need to use tests but instead can listen to a child reading or can read what a child has written. This way, the teacher knows whether the child can read or write at the national standard.

The Minister of Education, Anne Tolley, says that one reason for bringing in these standards is find out and help those pupils who are below the standard. Another reason is so that parents can see exactly how their child is doing at school. Our schools do not use marks, grades, percentages or place in class so sometimes it is hard for parents to know if their child is doing well at school. School reports from next year will tell parents if their child has reached the national standard for reading, writing and arithmetic.