In September 2010 the Wellcome Trust published a detailed report which, for the first time, gave an in-depth analysis of the learning experiences of children in England and Wales as they prepare for science assessment at the end of their primary education (key stage 2), and the children's ideas about how the experience might be improved. The study, carried out by a research group at Queen's University Belfast, compared science assessment practices and experiences of 10- to 12-year-old children in Wales, where Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) at age 11 were abolished in 2004, with those of children in England, where the cohort surveyed in 2009 were among the last children to do science SATs. The report received much publicity and different newspapers emphasised different findings; these highlight the tensions surrounding assessment frequently felt by children, their parents and their teachers. The conflict between knowing that assessment is important and finding a method that is fair and impacts positively on children's experience of science learning has been addressed in many research and inspection reports previously, but what the authors offer in this work is: "the voice of the children at the receiving end of policy decisions and a host of (frequently untested) new teaching and assessment approaches." Here, the authors show how important it is to listen to children's views on assessment. (Contains 2 figures.)