PROTESTING parents, teachers and educationalists are lining up to give top marks to Government plans to scrap controversial tests for seven-year-olds in England.

Proposals to end the national Sats tests in English, maths, spelling and grammar, for children in year two have been put out for consultation. However, such is the opposition to Sats for this age group that the outcome of the consultation seems a foregone conclusion.

Pressure to ban the tests began mounting last year when parents staged a strike and took their six and seven-year-olds out of school on test days.

Concerned parents spoke of children being stressed and of lessons becoming too focused on passing the tests at the expense of engagement and enjoyment.

Few people would say children do not need to be tested, but many would question the practice of inflicting formal examinations on children as young as six years old.

The Government is suggesting informally measuring children’s academic abilities when they first arrive in school and then at the end of primary school, when they are aged ten and eleven.

English school children are the most tested in world – but you have to ask for what purpose, and at what price? Other nations outperform our children in terms of academic achievement, meanwhile levels of anxiety and mental health problems among our young people are higher than ever.

Scrapping Sats for seven-year-olds is a move in the right direction.