Balls defies call to axe more tests

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Mr Balls said the Key Stage Two tests at the age of 11 were an indicator of how an individual child and school were performing.

He added that Key Stage One tests at the age of seven were "more of an assessment by the teacher" and enabled schools to give extra help to children who were falling behind in reading and mathematics.

His remarks come after the Government on Tuesday announced that it would be abolishing national school tests for 14-year-olds and replacing them with school-based assessments by teachers in the early years of secondary education.

"It is important in the end that kids go into secondary school with those basics under control. Without the Sats, we just don't know that that is happening," he told GMTV.

He added: "At 11, in my view, Sats are very important and they are going to stay, although we will try and reform them to make them more suited to the needs of the individual child."

The Key Stage Three tests will be replaced with school-based assessments by teachers in the early years of secondary education.

Mr Balls announced on Tuesday that the Key Stage 2 tests would remain and be used to target catch-up tuition more effectively in years 7, 8 and 9.

The shake-up follows chaos this year in the marking of Sats which led to the termination of a Government contract with ETS Europe.

That development brought forward the opportunity for ministers to make a decision about the long-term future of the national tests. But Mr Balls denied the Government had performed a U-turn, insisting the issue had been on the agenda for at least a year.