The start of Year 6 should be a time of excitement, leadership and growing confidence. Yet, as a headteacher of ten years and a previous Year 6 teacher for many years, I know that for too many children it will be dominated not by opportunity but by pressure.
By July 2026, I will watch them leave for secondary school and Year 7. Some will stride out ready for the challenges ahead. But others (too often boys, pupils with special educational needs and those facing disadvantage) will walk away already carrying the weight of disengagement.
We like to think the system has prepared them, but the truth is that the final years of primary school are increasingly dominated by data farming. Instead of being seen as children in their own right, Year 6 pupils are often treated as walking sets of results.
The irony is that the very children who most need to feel a sense of belonging are those most likely to feel like they do not measure up.
As someone who has experienced anxiety since childhood, I know first-hand the impact of being told, subtly or bluntly, that you are not enough. I remember vividly how exams and tests made me feel like an imposter. That same sense of failure still cripples far too many children today.
The conversation about boys in education is often reductive. We are told they are easily distracted or immature, but in reality many boys mask their struggles. They may be energetic, resistant or even disruptive, but scratch beneath the surface and you will find anxiety, fear of failure and disconnection from a curriculum that does not feel designed for them.
True, this is not only a boys’ issue; many girls mask too. But it is boys who statistically disengage at scale and who disappear from our system in worrying numbers.
Our data-driven culture is squeezing out belonging
If we are serious about inclusion, we must start by asking ourselves a simple question: who feels at home in our schools? Not just who passes, who scores well or who behaves. Who belongs?
Because our data-driven culture is squeezing out play, creativity and the very things that make childhood joyful and build belonging.
Primary schools should be places where curiosity is nurtured, not curtailed. Year 6 should be a year of leadership, confidence and celebration, not exhaustion and cramming. If we want children to succeed in secondary, we need to stop seeing the end of primary as a final sorting exercise.
There is hope. Across the country, many schools are building cultures that value play, holistic assessment and relationships as much as results.
These schools do not ignore standards; they achieve them by putting belonging first. When children feel seen, safe and valued, their outcomes follow.
But policy still lags behind. We remain locked in a twentieth-century model of assessment in a twenty-first century world, with school leaders caught between accountability systems and our moral purpose.
I understand the need for rigour and fairness, but fairness should mean every child has the chance to shine, not that we make them all sit the same narrow test and label them according to its outcome.
This is why the current curriculum and assessment review matters so much. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape education so it works for every child.
But the pace of change cannot be timid. Evolution is too slow. What we need is revolution. If we are serious about building an education system that values belonging as much as attainment, it is going to take bold decisions.
I’m sure many will have said so in their consultation responses, and I hope Becky Francis and her panel haver heard them.
As the autumn term begins and the review’s final report looms, we owe it to every child starting Year 6 not just to prepare them for a test but for a thriving future. If we fail to do so, we will keep waving them off in July knowing, deep down, that some are already slipping away from education.
And once they are lost, it is so much harder to win them back.
Totally agree. Those working too far below expected are often overlooked as pressure increases on staff to get those just below to make the grade. Teacher time is spent on booster groups not nurture groups. Kids sit more practice papers so are regularly reminded they are ‘failing’.
Having taught 53 years since 1968 and with family teaching now it occurs to me that you have not only hit the nail on the head but revealed a truth that applies at all key stages.
Taking what you say and adjusting to show this : ‘All’ “schools should be places where curiosity is nurtured, not curtailed. ‘Every’ “Year should be a year of leadership, confidence and celebration, not exhaustion and cramming. If we want children to succeed ” ‘at every stage if education’ “we need to stop seeing the end” ‘goal, primarily’ ” as a sorting exercise” but a window of opportunity & fun, as a celebration, achievement, a recognition of the many kinds of intelligences and development of talents. In short an education and a school system fit for purpose
I agree with what James Sergeant says, I would say that it not just a question of not focusing on testing in year 6. The whole system is failing children who struggle academically, especially boys. These are the children who don’t have EHCPs although could also include children with EHCPs. Having worked as a TA in a primary school for the last 8 years I have seen how children fall through the net. They may have different interventions thrown at them which are squeezed in so that children miss assemblies in order to prevent them missing the lessons which they can’t engage in anyway because they are so far behind. The whole education system has lost sight of the basics of just spending time with such children individually outside of class for not long periods of time, but just enough on a daily, consistent basis to help them with reading, writing and spelling. I say this because I have seen what a difference it has made to boys I worked with who were 3 years behind when they started year 3. I wasn’t asked to do what I did, I just made it my mission to get 3 boys reading by the end of the year so aimed to make that time as and when I could before lessons started and just after lunch. When they started year 4 they could all read and wanted to engage in lessons. If I had not done this, even though I wasn’t required to do it. I’m not sure where they’d be now in terms of school engagement. I believed in these boys ability to learn read, write and spell and I wanted to encourage them in their small and great achievements. I saw what a difference it made to them and their parents desire to support them. They needed the personal one-to-one and the benefits were huge. We’ve lost sight of the basics of what children need to learn in order to function as responsible citizens in society.
I agree, too many children enjoy breaktimes but sit in lessons bored and just waiting for it to end. They see school as somewhere they are trapped and must tolerate. School needs a rethink, resources that plan engaging lesson plans where the full range of learning styles are utilised could easily be developed and given to teachers so that we are not expecting children to sit still to learn and not talk five hours a day. Its actually abusive and children’s declining mental health is the writing on the wall. What are we waiting for?
I couldn’t agree more. Felt very emotional reading this, as a former teacher of 20 years, I left three years ago as I could no longer balance what I knew was the right way to teach with what I was being asked to do. Revolution is needed but unfortunately I’m not sure it’s coming any time soon.
Totally agree with you. I left teaching after 22 years after entering it at 39. How I loved those early years in the mid 80s, when you could really teach… before National Curriculum/ Sats/ this Literacy strategy /that Maths strategy/ whatever strategy…yadda yadda yadda… Where has all that got us when standards are dropping when mental health amongst children and young adults is declining year on year and school refusal through disengagement is rife? We will carry this shame as a nation, where our children have been used as political pawns by successive governments, for a long, long time.