The third front likely to be opened up at the conference is over the new phonics check for all six-year-olds, to be introduced this summer. It will mean testing them on 30 different words – including some made-up ones – to check on their understanding of phonics, considered by ministers to be the best way to teach children how to read. There will be calls for a ballot on boycotting the tests – although whether this could be agreed in time for this year's is debatable.

Teachers who have piloted the tests say they are not an accurate check on children's reading, as some of the brightest children misspell the made-up words in an attempt to make them seem genuine.

Teachers passed a motion opposing the use of phonics reading testing—which would be carried out on children as young as five.

They voted for a campaign, including a boycott if the Year 1 Phonics Test is used to contribute to league tables.

The national executive member moving the motion said, “I did not come into teaching to label children as failures. I will stop the test at the first sign of a child’s stress as a result.”

I will stop the test at the first sign of a child’s stress as a result.

My main concerns are:

Only 32% of children in the pilot test ‘passed’. If your child is unlucky enough to ‘fail’ you have to be told. Many parents, myself included, will tear up that bit of paper or shrug of that piece of news and carry on reading whole sentences or even *gasp* whole stories with our children. We will continue to help them to acquire all those skills needed for reading; we will talk about content, we will look at pictures, we will predict what the next word might be using our previous knowledge, we will use picture clues, we will enjoy reading. Some parents, however, will not. They will see that word ‘fail’ and they will apply it to their parenting skills and/or to their children. Five and six year olds are NOT failing at phonics, they are learning at their pace. This is not, as Mr Gove said, a test to inform teachers it is yet another unhelpful measure of ‘success’ or ‘failure’ at a very early age – some children will be 20% older than others in the class, that is one fifth of their little lives, one fifth more reading time. Fair Mr Gove?

The test is made up of a mixture of real words and MADE UP WORDS! This is apparently to assess decoding skills specifically and make sure they can’t guess the word! One of the skills of reading IS guessing what the word might be using your previous knowledge of text. What a stumbling block! If you had put this test in front of my first born who read very early and was pretty fluent by year one he would’ve hesitated, he would’ve been reluctant to have a go, he would’ve doubted himself BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT REAL WORDS! Can you imagine if Mr Gove was in opposition and a Labour Government proposed a test containing the words ‘snemp’ or ‘thazz’ or ‘chom’? I think he’d be shouting about the loony left, teaching our children gibberish!

Activists are also proposing to block a controversial new reading test for all six-year-olds, which is being staged for the first time this summer, if ministers attempt to use the data to rank schools.

Russell Hobby, the union’s general secretary, said: "We fear that the pass rate for the new phonics screening check will be set at an arbitrary high level in order to fuel headlines about children failing to learn to read.

"We don't see the need for this screening check - it is inferior to what most schools do already - but if it is to happen it should be used as a genuine diagnostic test, not a stick to beat schools with. And if it is used to attack rather than assess, that will be the end of the screening check as far as the NAHT is concerned.”

Fundamentally disagree with you Mona.

Y1 screening check a really good way to apply leverage in order to get schools that don't teach phonics properly to focus on this and get their children to a good standard by end of Y1.

Knock on effect to Early Years as you can't do well on the Y1 screening check if you haven't been taught straight away from Nursery/Reception.

Parents shouldn't have to school proof their child and teach them to read. They pay taxes for the teachers to do this. Why pay for the dog and bark yourself?!

More power to the Y1 screening check, I say! Far more effective than the SATs.

Parents shouldn't have to school proof their child and teach them to read. They pay taxes for the teachers to do this. Why pay for the dog and bark yourself?