HC Deb 10 June 2003 vol 406 c780W
Mr. Gibb

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will assess the value of standardised testing at Key Stage 1. [117183]

Mr. Miliband

The Department is committed to raising standards in schools and believes that national testing of children's progress is necessary in order to achieve higher standards. It has a positive impact on the quality of teaching and learning and provides a comparable picture of a child's progress against local and national standards for schools, parents and the wider community.

We propose to trial, in 2004, an approach that uses testing to underpin teacher assessment and feed into a single overarching teacher judgment rather than being reported separately.