Testing four-year-olds

SIR – In his letter (April 20) arguing that tests for four-year-olds are good because they help measure teachers’ abilities, Chris Sermon completely misses the point.

The reason that many in the education profession (such as myself) are against such baseline testing is precisely because a baseline produced for any purpose at this age is most likely to be invalid.

Children of four who have just entered school often have so little concept of what a test is that you would be lucky if the majority of the class realised that they were meant to give a set answer to a question, let alone get it right.

This is due to children of this age being imaginative, creative, joyful bundles of boundless energy. They are not yet the test robots our education system seems to desire. For this we should be grateful. Roland Johnson

Stowe, Buckinghamshire