Question: Does the government interfere too much in the teaching and assessment process?

Sheila Dainton: My feeling is that it interferes far too much. In fact it has happened over the past decade or so. We've seen a creeping centralisation of the way in which government directly interferes with what, in the view of the ATL, should be the traditional role of the teacher.

The government is there to govern.

It shouldn't get involved in the day-to-day business of what goes on in the classroom: how lessons are taught, what is taught and so on and so forth. I would have thought that ministers have better things to do than tell teachers how to teach.

What concerns us is that they are becoming increasingly involved in the day-to-day running of the classroom. Basically it's not their business.

Question: Students seem to face a barrage of tests these days. What is the effect on teachers and pupils?

Sheila Dainton:We have the most tested students in the UK. It affects them all - right the way from the very young children of five years old right up to the sixteen and seventeen year-olds.

For those who don't do so well early on in their school lives these tests are very demotivating. They feel totally disappointed if they don't get the right level. They can be left with the impression that they are absolute non-starters, even when they are so young.

This is not what we should be saying to our young people. And so for all the children concerned, they are over-tested to the point where many of them are under considerable amounts of stress.

The Association published a report about six months ago which was called 'Work, Work, Work' which is how some 16 and 17 year-olds described theirexperience of school. They said it was nothing but homework and tests. They didn't have the time to do the sort of things that normal healthy 16 and 17 year-olds should be doing. Basically they need a life too.

Question: So would you agree that these tests are not meeting the needs of slow learners?

Sheila Dainton: Well the government itself has commissioned research, which has proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that the effect of all this testing on slow learners is that they actually become even more demoralised than they were in the first place.

So it seems rather bizarre to me that ministers have commissioned this research but don't seem to be taking any notice of the findings.

Question: What did ATL's recent Teaching to Learn Conference focus on last week?

Sheila Dainton: The Teaching to Learn campaign is to remind us that schools aren't about tests; they are about educating and supporting children to learn. Schools should be a place of learning and the conference looked at ways in which assessment will help learning and at what young people want from their schools.