For many years we have been teaching pupils from academically low backgrounds and sending them off with a good, rounded education and the social skills needed to work in shops and offices. A few students who showed exceptional ability went on to university, including medical school in one particularly gifted case. But in general they were GCSE-level students and were taught in a way which allowed them to achieve what they could and then sent out into the world to contribute to society in their own way.

Nowadays, however, all of our students are given targets which they are expected to reach and if they do not achieve them then the teaching is called into question. In some cases teachers have been named and shamed in front of the whole staff for this. This would not be so bad if the targets had been produced by people who knew the children and were aware of each child's potential, but this is not the case. Instead the targets are produced either by outside agencies or by crude mathematical operations. For example, on arriving at my secondary school aged 11, students in Key Stage 3 (KS3) are now expected to raise their achievement in the SATs by two levels from KS2, regardless of their potential. If you think in terms of the high jump, it is like saying all students will jump one metre higher than they did at primary school. A child who is only capable of understanding to level 5 will be seen as failing if he was targeted with a level 6 purely because he got a level 4 at KS2, rather than seen as succeeding. Moreover, the teacher who taught him will be required to explain why this child did not succeed.

Other targets are calculated using more complicated mathematics than this. The Fisher Family Trust produces masses of data for each child in the country, predicting what they are capable of achieving at KS3 and GCSE. This is based on their previous results compared to the average for students of similar backgrounds. This is somewhat more realistic than just adding two levels, but is really applicable only to subject areas where the previous data exists, ie in maths, English and science. In reality these figures are pressed into service to predict grades in all subjects, based on, for example, the assumption that history is similar to English, so the English prediction is used for history. This already stretches the data beyond their applicable range, but when students are given predicted grades for music, art and PE based on their previous test results in English, maths and science, then the situation has descended into farce. It ceases to be funny when staff are victimised by management for not achieving these targets.