Read the Select Committee report in full

School standards should be monitored by the random testing of a sample of pupils, MPs demand today.

In a powerful attack on the system of national curriculum testing in schools, the Children Schools and Families Select Committee, said that, far from raising standards, the current arrangements encouraged a narrow curriculum that turned students off learning and increased their anxiety.

The damning report comes as 1.2 million 11 and 14-year-olds across England take their national curriculum tests in maths, English and science.

The committee deplored the “widespread” practice of schools teaching to the test, when preparing students for national tests at the ages of seven, 11 and 14. Drilling children to focus on “marking-winning behaviours” and “test tactics”, leads to shallow learning and short-term retention of knowledge at the expense of a rounded education, the MPs said.

This can leave pupils “unprepared” for university and employment, with teachers focusing on a few children on grade “borderlines” at the expense of others.

However, the committee, chaired by the Barry Sheerman, of Labour, stopped short of recommending that national curriculum tests should be scrapped, arguing that “the principle of national testing is sound.”

Instead the committee demanded that school accountability be separated from the system of pupil testing.

It recommends a system of sample testing, in which a small percentage of children in each school or local authority would sit the same test every year to measure standards. Sampling could coexist with a system of pupil testing and more use of internal assessment by teachers to gauge individual progress, it said.

English school children are tested externally more than any other children in the world and the committee’s report is the latest in a long line of attacks on the testing regime.

Of the 52 pieces of written evidence submitted to the inquiry, only one unequivocally backed the current system and that was submitted by the government itself, according to the Times Educational Supplement.

Education experts strongly oppose the testing regime, and also argue that national curriculum tests govern and distort the school agenda, particularly at primary level.

One head teacher of a popular London primary school, was recently told by his local authority that he should be holding Saturday morning revision classes to improve performance, even though his results were already above the national average.

Another said she had decided to teach only English, maths and science to her 11-year-old pupils. Her only concession to curriculum variety was to allow PE once a week.

A third told a parent that he was letting the whole school down because he was the only one refusing to hire a private tutor to boost his 11-year-old’s Key Stage 2 tests.

The committee’s report acknowledged the strength of such concerns. It also cautioned against the government’s planned reforms for testing with the introduction of a “single level test”, currently being being piloted in more than 400 schools.

Under the pilot, pupils are tested when their teachers think they are ready, not at fixed ages. Ministers claim this will encourage schools to help pupils make faster progress and ease pressure on pupils. But the MPs warned the plans would make matters worse if tests results were still used to hold schools accountable in league tables and against government targets.

The committee also demanded an inquiry into “grade inflation” amid concerns that test results may exaggerate the true standards of education that children reach.

In addition, it expressed concern about the introduction of new diplomas for 14 to 19-year-olds, which will combine practical work experience with academic theory.

It called on the government to make clear whether it intended ultimately to incorporate A-levels and GCSEs into the diploma system or whether they would be scrapped completely.

Christine Blower, Acting General Secretary, of the National Union of Teachers, said the government should now initiate an independent review of the testing regime and school accountability.

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