GLENOTHES West and Kinglassie councillor, Julie Ford, has called Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrat councillors 'hypocrites' following the Education and Children Services Committee where the use of Scottish National Standardised Assesment (SNSA) for P1s was discussed.

This report was sent to the committee following a fuelled debate on the issue at last month’s Full Council meeting.

The SNP and religious representatives on the committee voted to allow Fife schools to continue using SNSAs, while Labour, the Conservatives and the one Liberal Democrat councillor voted to move back to using an older method of assessments called PIPs.

Commenting after the debate, Kinglassie Councillor Julie Ford said: “I think the public ought to know that councillors from Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats tried to get the Council to abandon using the SNSAs, which are provided to our schools free of charge by the Scottish Government and compliment the Curriculum for Excellence, and instead wanted the Council and our schools to pay tens of thousands of pounds to buy in an old model of assessments from Durham University.

“It was an odd debate where on one hand the opposing councillors tried to tell the committee how distressing assessments were for our young people - which I can have complete sympathy with - but on the other hand they were saying how these other forms of assessments, which involved our children to be tested twice in P1, were excellent. An assessment is an assessment, and if a child is going to find one form distressing, then they sure as hell will find another one just as distressing".

She added: “It was Orwellian double-think. We don’t like those assessments because of who provides them, but we like these ones because they’re the ones that we’ve chosen.

“Thankfully, the majority on the committee saw sense, refused to play politics with our children’s education, and voted to continue using the SNSAs while the independent review, requested by the Scottish Government, takes place.”

Lid Dem Councillor James Calder said: “It is extremely disappointing that a majority of Councillors have been ignored and that P1s will continue to be tested in Fife. This reflects the situation that the Scottish Government are ignoring the will of the Scottish Parliament on this issue.

“These tests are time consuming and on average takes 32 minutes- that is 32 minutes of teaching time taken away from our children. The EIS has also expressed reservations and it was telling that the report brought to Councillors today did not have any consultation with the trade unions.

“The SNSA tests for P1s continue to be discredited and the Scottish Government should start to listen.”