Trainee teachers' skills tests in literacy and numeracy are no indication of a teachers quality of teaching. Trainee teachers have already gone through all the hoops of education to reach the stage of training and should not be tested on meaningless information. The tests are about how fast you can answer a question, not how well you understand it. As a dyslexic Design and Technology teacher I will never be able to pass this test and, therefore, am in the situation of having spent four years on teacher training BAEd and with a huge loan to pay off and am unable to become a qualified teacher or for my pay to rise. I now have to wait 2 years to retake my test having failed three attempts by 2 marks, meanwhile still teaching as an unqualified teacher. I have been working continuously on a lower salary unable to progress and have never once witnessed even one 'box and whisker', pie chart or scatter diagram in my time. Has anyone out there? Who can explain why? I should be able to retake it tomorrow if I so choose. The rules have only just recently changed for teachers. Is this why there is such a shortage? Being so stressed because of the limitations on a test is no way to excel in any tests. The system is perverse. No wonder teachers are dropping like flies. We are not being supported. I worked hard to get a top Degree and it's all for nothing. The system needs to change so that people who can offer quality teaching can access the training, not just those that are quick to answer. Teaching is about getting more out of pupils than the answers, it's about promoting deeper thinking and discussion. Surely this is what we want from new teachers, not box ticking robots.