TEACHERS have welcomed calls for changes to the way pupils are tested.

The General Teaching Council, an independent regulatory body, recommended to a House of Commons Committee that the Standard Assessment Tests for seven, 11 and 14-year-olds should be abolished.

Instead, a small percentage of pupils will be tested to map educational standards.

The proposals, supported by the National Union of Teachers, are designed to give teachers more opportunity to teach rather than coach pupils for exams.

Head teacher of Queen's Park Junior School Dominic Sibeth said: "It is useful and helpful that they have opened up the debate but I am not convinced that sampling is better or worse.

"I think that there needs to be a combination of testing and teacher assessment."

He said that it was important to know that children were able to read and write to the appropriate standard but that this could be assessed by teachers without recourse to SATs.

Although he thought there was benefit in testing children for diagnostic purposes, he felt the results of these tests would not need to be published.

Education campaigners have argued that league tables are necessary for parents to see how their child and the school are performing but teachers say this only offers a snapshot of what the school achieves.

Bob Kennedy, head teacher of St Michael's Primary School in Bournemouth, said: "The percentage of time children spend on tests is not particularly great but as we go through the year the tests are on our minds because we are judged by league tables.

"There are lots of things schools do in terms of developing the whole child that we cannot measure."

Local authorities defended the SATs but pointed out that they are not the only measure of a school's or pupil's progress.

Acting head of children and young people's services, strategy, quality and improvement for the Borough of Poole, Di Mitchell, said: "We do not rely solely on SATs."

A spokesman for Bournemouth council said: "Teacher assessment has always played a part in the process of gauging attainment.

"Alongside this the current national tests provide parents with a snapshot of children's progress.

"Assessments help teachers to decide what additional support a child might need.

"Parents will always want to know what their child is achieving."