Abolish league tables, say heads

Headteachers demanded the abolition of test and exam performance tables for primary and secondary schools yesterday.

Delegates at the National Association of Head Teachers' (NAHT) conference in York said the tables put pressure on schools to teach to tests and exams and stifled children's creativity and enjoyment of school.

They added that it was wrong for schools to be marked down on their test results if a child was absent through illness or because they had been taken out of school on holiday by their parents.

Ian Foster, West Midlands executive member of the NAHT, said: "It comes to a sad state of affairs where the needs of the individual child are hijacked in the relentless pursuit of government statistics.'' He added: "We are now embedded in a testing culture which even the House of Commons Select Committee on Education commented was imposing intolerable stress on pupils.''

Gareth Matthewson, president of the NAHT, won loud cheers and applause from delegates when he told the Schools minister Stephen Twigg, who had been invited to address the conference, that the union would campaign for the abolition of the tables.

Mr Matthewson, headteacher of Whitchurch High School in Cardiff, one of the biggest comprehensives, won more applause when he added: "Some of us already have the experience of living without the performance tables and I believe we have reaped considerable benefits from that policy decision by the Welsh government.''

The Welsh Assembly has abolished league tables as well as tests for seven-year-olds. Instead, parents can obtain information on test and exam results from schools or local education authorities.

Mr Twigg was heckled as he sought to defend the tests and tables. He acknowledged there "should be more to education that literacy and numeracy'', adding: "I believe more needs to be done to recognise this.'' A strategy document outlining ways of promoting more creativity in primary schools will be published later this summer.

A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills said: "There is no going back to the old days of the secret garden where parents didn't know what was happening in their local schools. Parents have a right to that information which – quite frankly – is essential to raising standards.''