I REMEMBER primary school being pretty stress-free with the focus being on the joy of learning new things.

How times have changed!

My 10-year-old son will be sitting his SATs next week having had an extremely demanding year at school. He has in effect had to learn two years’ work in a year due to the government moving the goalposts in terms of what year six children are tested on.

From this year they are now tested on the work normally taught in the first year of senior school (year seven) as well as the traditional year six work.

With primary schools’ overwhelming priority seeming to be scoring highly on school league tables so that they can pat themselves on the back for how good they are, this has led to my son having to work far harder than a boy of his age ever should.

He seems to be doing mock tests at school on a daily basis and has an extensive amount of homework to do every week.

And the teachers have obviously been hammering home to him that it is important he does well in his SATs as he is very stressed about them.

He has been in tears worrying about not doing well in his SATs in each of the last two weekends.

We have tried to reassure him that SATs have very, very limited significance on the grand scheme of things – maybe not for the primary schools themselves but certainly for the poor young kids that have to sit them.

Other parents have told us that their children are similarly stressed about their impending exams.

No wonder more than 40,000 parents have signed a petition calling for a SATs boycott and many kept their children off school on Tuesday in protest.

The campaign is called Let Our Kids Be Kids, which sums up my sentiments perfectly.

Primary school children should be enjoying school, not in tears over it.

D Lawrenson

Runcorn