Tony Blair long ago said that one of his priorities would be education, education, education. As many pupils have learned, this intent has in part translated into tests, tests, tests.

In a fresh assault on schools today, Education Secretary David Blunkett, ever the stern evangelist, is expected to announce the setting of new targets for children's achievement in English, maths and science at the age of 14.

This marks the latest step in the Government's standards revolution in schools, and follows the perceived success of national literacy and numeracy strategies in primary schools. Standards, as measured by the tests, have certainly risen in primary schools and attention is now turning to the early years at secondary schools, where ministers fear the achievements set down in primary school are being lost.

Mr Blunkett is concerned that the education key stage from the ages of 11 to 14 is a "forgotten" area, and believes that attention on this area will improve GCSE exam results at 16.

His strategy to tackle this problem includes more tests, voluntary at first, and the further introduction of summer schools. Ultimately, Mr Blunkett would like to see a summer school available for every 11-year-old in England. Whether or not the 11-year-olds in question will welcome this development is open to question.

For here is the rub with New Labour and education. We all want to see our children do well and should welcome the Government's keen interest in education. Yet there is a danger that tests do not actually improve education as such - they merely show children how to pass tests. This is no small skill, especially as education pivots on being able to pass exams.

But a fully-rounded education should be concerned with more than tests, and there are worries that subjects outside the core areas of literary, maths and science are no longer being given the emphasis they deserve.

As to the children Mr Blunkett is now addressing, they are at a sensitive age, coming under the influence of friends rather than merely their parents, and approaching the complex pressures of the teenage years. They can be a bit touchy, as Mr Blunkett surely knows.

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