This government has an obsession with testing.

Not assessing. Not identifying key areas of strength and weakness to support children to progress. Just testing.

Primary school teachers spend a lot of time with the pupils they teach. They get to know them really well. This of course includes how they learn and what they have learnt.

So yet another test that will tell us what we already know about our pupils is ridiculous.

The latest test to be imposed is the spelling, grammar and punctuation test that children in Year 6 are required to do.

The introduction of this test follows the Year 1 phonics screening that was implemented two years ago.

This involves every Year 1 pupil reading 40 individual words. Actually they do not read, they decode, because that is what this test is all about - decoding individual words using a system of phonics (learning how letters or groups of letters represent sounds and how to blend them to make a word).

To imply that this test is about reading gives a very false impression. Reading is about so much more than decoding.

In fact, there is a consistent body of research to show that reading for pleasure and developing a love of reading is not only a hugely important aspect of teaching reading but is one of the things most likely to impact on a child's life chances.

Year 1 teachers are rightly frustrated and angered by the screening because children who do not get 32 out of 40 correct are labelled as failures and their parents are informed that their children have failed the screening. Is this any way to encourage our young readers?

The results of the latest screening were published at the end of September and percentages for different cohorts were also published.

The differences that emerged tell us little about the pupils we teach and reaffirm the test is not fit for purpose, if the purpose is to support the learning of reading.

This whole picture is likely to be mirrored with the Year 6 spelling, grammar and punctuation test.

So we have to ask the question - what is the purpose of the test?

Spelling, punctuation and grammar are an essential part of writing. But they are just that - a part of writing.

The skills required to communicate effectively in written and spoken English involve so much more.

Testing, and therefore presumably teaching, spelling, punctuation and grammar as abstract concepts, divorced from the context of written language, is more likely to turn students off these areas, or even off writing itself, and leave many feeling they have failed in education.

Since taking office as Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove has changed teachers' pensions and teachers' pay and conditions for the worse.

He has rewritten the primary curriculum again, promoting rote learning. He has tried to change the way that children are assessed at secondary level via his "English baccalaureate," but found the resistance to this too great.

This is largely due to a joint campaign run by an alliance of education stakeholders - teacher unions, parent groups, governors, industry and academics.

Now Gove has criticised secondary schools for entering children for exams early. Supposedly schools are "gaming the system" to get children the highest possible grades.

But his response to this is to allow early entry but rule that the early entry grades cannot contribute to a school's league tables.

This is not a change that is going to bring about any significant difference to the way that children learn. In fact, it is just another shifting of the goalposts.

The pressure for teachers to ensure that higher percentages of children pass tests in very narrow areas of learning will inevitably lead to teaching to the tests and, in this case, a skewing of the way the teaching of reading and writing is done.

We must ensure that we continue to use a rich literature-based approach to teaching and develop a love of reading and writing that will endure.

A recent NUT survey of parents showed that only 8 per cent agreed with Gove's education policies.

But despite that he is succeeding in radically changing education.

In campaigning against the English baccalaureate, we showed that he can be beaten.

We need to build the same broad alliances to challenge his drive towards a Gradgrind curriculum.

Philipa Harvey is in Croydon NUT and on the union's primary advisory committee