STANDARD Assessment Tests for six and seven-year-olds could come to an end if headteachers in Swindon have their way.

The controversial tests have already been abandoned in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The National Association of Head Teachers stepped up the pressure on the Government to slash the number of compulsory tests at its annual conference in York.

Results from the tests, which cover skills including numeracy and literacy, are used to compile primary school league tables but on Saturday the Evening Advertiser revealed that Penhill Primary School had been labelled one of the best schools in the town by Government inspectors Ofsted, despite finishing bottom of the league tables for two years running.

Mike Welsh, head of Goddard Park Primary School in Park North, is Swindon's NAHT branch secretary and was at the conference.

He explained that SATS were costing the country £200 million a year at a time when schools in Swindon were facing redundancies. He also criticised league tables for failing to reflect how children had improved.

He said: "We are putting six and seven-year-old pupils under enormous pressure.

"We should be able to spend more time teaching children and not putting them through tests. Penhill Primary School is a great example of a school which is giving its pupils a top quality education even though it has finished bottom of the league tables.

"League tables only show the end result and not the improvement made. At some schools pupils arrive able to read and write and at others pupils don't have access to books at home.

"These tests are ineffective, inadequate and wrong."

Swindon's members of the National Union of Teachers are to take part in a ballot on whether to boycott teaching SATS. Dick Mattick of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers said: "Testing pupils more isn't going to make them do any better.

"As a headteacher said to me recently, it doesn't matter how many times you weigh something it won't make it any heavier."