PARENTS have written to a York MP in a bid to get the Government to scrap controversial SATS test.

The frustrated parents with children in Year 2 at Lord Deramore's Primary School, in Heslington, contacted York Outer MP Julian Sturdy to raise their concerns after they were "disturbed" to notice curriculum changes which focused more on exams.

The letter was penned by 15 York mums and dads who chose to take their children out of school on Tuesday as part of a national protest at the age youngsters are required to sit their SATs.

Children as young as six-years-old will sit their Key Stage One SATs test in Year 2 and Key Stage Two SATs, which test 10 and 11-year-olds in Year 6, as part of new curriculum developed by the Department for Education.

In the letter the parents said: "More and more time is being spent in class on teaching our children to jump through the hoops that they will need to jump through in order to be considered to be working at the Year 2 expected level by the lights of the standardised tests they are due to sit in May.

"The school has tried its hardest to avoid putting students under conscious pressure around the SATs, indeed, most of our children are not aware that they will be taking these tests."

Parents claim too much time is devoted to preparing children for the tests and less focus is placed on making the lessons engaging.

This has led to children becoming sad and losing focus in the classroom.

"We see the effects of this change in our children in many ways," the letter adds.

"We see children disengaged by yet another day spent learning obscure points of grammar; we see children coming home saddened that they have had to miss out on enjoyable activities such as singing so that they can spend more time on mastering the material on which they will be tested; and in the worst cases, we see children becoming anxious and upset that they’re ‘stupid’ because they are having difficulty understanding a curriculum that is asking six and seven-year-olds to master material that once belonged in Key Stage Two or higher."

Julian Sturdy's office said he had received the letter and would review it.