Responding to this morning's Key Stage 2 Sats figures, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “Pupils, teachers and school leaders have worked incredibly hard throughout the year and deserve enormous credit for their achievements.

“However, it is time to change this system of statutory assessment which is of little benefit to teachers or children. School leaders have told us loud and clear that Sats do very little to inform future teaching and learning, support children’s progress, or help their transition to secondary school. They tell teachers nothing they don’t already know from working day in and day out with pupils.

“These tests are instead used as an accountability tool to judge and compare school performance – and not even a reliable one at that. They are given disproportionate significance and heap pressure onto pupils and staff, causing unnecessary stress and in some cases harming their wellbeing.

“We were disappointed that the interim curriculum and assessment review report did not support scaling back statutory tests for children. Reducing the negative impact, cost, time and resources required for phonics, the multiplication check and the grammar, punctuation and spelling tests would not reduce standards, and we urge the review team to think again ahead of the publication of its final report.”