General election 2010

Three main parties against Sats boycott

Labour, Conservative and Lib Dems would all ask teachers to go ahead with Sats if their parties were elected on Thursday
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Each of the three major political parties would call on teachers to stop next week's boycott of national tests for 10- and 11-year-olds, it emerged today.

The Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat schools spokesmen told the BBC's Daily Politics show that if their parties were elected on Thursday, they would ask teachers to administer the tests formerly known as Sats.

The maths and English tests are due to be sat by 600,000 pupils from Monday, but unions say over half of all headteachers in England's 17,000 primary schools plan to boycott them.

Pupils in schools taking part in the boycott will still attend classes, but will not be entered for the tests.

The National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Head Teachers argue that Sats in their current form disrupt the learning process and are "misused to compile meaningless league tables which only serve to humiliate and demean children, their teachers and their communities". A Sats boycott on Monday will be one of the first challenges the new government faces.

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, said he "certainly wouldn't bow to a boycott". "I would ask and appeal to teachers to respect the situation as it is now, but I do believe that the quality of marking [in the tests] is very poor," he said. He preferred a system whereby teachers marked their pupils' tests and an external marker checked some papers to ensure they were not being too generous.

Ed Balls, the schools secretary, said it was "really unfair" to children if teachers did not go ahead with the tests. "I don't think that headteachers should be stopping these tests. Let's work together. The league tables are too narrow, let's reform them."

Michael Gove, the Conservative shadow schools secretary, said he would try to "transcend wrangling". "We understand professionals have problems with these tests, but it is critical that parents know how their children are doing. We need to have externally marked tests." He said his party wasn't sure that teachers marking their pupils' tests alone was a robust enough way of marking the tests.

All three schools spokesmen agreed that schools should have uniforms. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives agreed that they would keep A-levels. Balls said this was up to parents to decide.

Gove did not say how much his party would give for a pupil premium – a fixed financial incentive for schools to take pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. However, he said he wanted the funds to be on top of the current schools budget.

At the moment, local authorities receive nearly £4bn each year for deprived students, but not all the funds are given directly to the schools that take in the poorest students. Forums made up of teachers and officers at the local authority decide how the money should be spent. Under the current system, the poorest parts of the country receive more funds than the richest. This puts poor pupils in rich areas at a disadvantage and means that the funds do not necessarily go to the most deprived children.

The Lib Dems have pledged to give an extra £2.5bn each year to deprived pupils. Their pupil premium would be introduced a year after they came to power. The money would go directly to schools, rather than be allocated by the forums. Balls has promised to allow local authorities and schools the right to decide how to distribute funds for the most deprived pupils.

Gove said: "We want to make [the pupil premium] additional money to the schools budget." The government has not had a comprehensive spending review so we haven't got all the figures."

Balls accused Gove of watering down his pledge on the pupil premium. He said: "This was Mr Gove's last opportunity before polling day to set out the details of how he would pay for the pupil premium he has been promising. He ducked it and watered down his pledge, which suggests it was always a smokescreen to disguise the true agenda of immediate Tory cuts to schools."

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