Letter: School tests: pluses and minuses

Sir: Are we to produce a nation of lily-livered, exam-shy adults? Throughout life one is tested in one form or another; and life is competitive. Would it not be better and kinder to prepare future adults by removing the myth of exams as being awesome experiences through regular testing?

I am glad that my seven-year-old daughter is currently doing her Sats. She is in no way traumatised by these tests, nor am I. At the school she attends, they are being carried out calmly and as a matter of course. Sadly, it is sometimes the case that parents make children unnecessarily anxious by over-reacting.

Let us hope regular testing is here to stay, and that children may thus become used to taking exams and therefore approach career-important exams more calmly and confidently.

Yours faithfully,

FIONA PRIDHAM

London, W5

11 May