My memory of early evening, Friday November 14, 2003, is hazy. My brain seems to think it was raining, and a Met Office report concurs. “Bands of heavy rain and showers were carried on gale-force south-westerly winds.” I’m pretty sure that a meeting I attended in the late afternoon took place after dark. A quick google confirms the sun went down that day at 4.13pm. My only other memory of that meeting is of a red-haired, indignant young man arguing ferociously that SATs were a terrible, terrible thing. They were so bad, in fact, they “destroyed teaching”, and he sided with trade unionists wanting to scrap them. With the help of Josh O’Connor, democratic support officer at the Oxford University Student Union, I was able to confirm this too. There, in the minutes of the union’s council meeting from that dark, wet, blustery day, is the proof that John Blake – this week anointed as the new head of education at right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange – really, really hated testing once upon a time. My only other memory of that meeting is of a red-haired, indignant young man arguing ferociously that SATs were a terrible, terrible thing Not so…http://schoolsweek.co.uk/beware-john-blake-the-red-rebel-with-great-influence/