Pupils in England sit tests at seven, 11 and 14

They stand accused of narrowing the curriculum, making learning dry and boring, adding to workload and creating a generation of over-stressed children.

The National Union of Teachers is threatening a total boycott of Sats, as the tests are known.

But the government says this would be an "absolute betrayal" of children, who are sitting papers designed to assess their progress and raise standards.

Amid this clash of opinions, we hear little of what the children themselves think.

BBC News Online spoke to first-year pupils at Copthall School, a comprehensive in north London, about the tests they sat last summer.

Then aged 10 and 11 and still at primary school, they did exams in maths, English and science.

Their experiences were as varied as the experts' opinions.

Zoe, 11

I knew exams were coming, so I revised a lot. We also did a lot of revision in classes for a couple of months. A couple of weeks before they started, I was shaking a lot.

Then the tests came, but a lot of the things I revised weren't in them. Some questions were hard and some were easy.

My parents were good about it, but it's still a lot of pressure and it's quite hard to cope. We were all a bit shaky. Some of the others were going mad about it, a few were quite calm.

I did exams when I was seven, but there was much more pressure this time.

I did all right in the end. But if I could choose, I don't think I would do them.

Faith, 12

I was very nervous, even though I had revised a lot. I didn't know what was going to be in the tests.

We had a basic idea about science because we had done a lot of work on it.

The teachers put a lot of pressure on us.

From about a month before the tests, I would revise when I got home from school for about an hour and then for another half an hour before I went to sleep. I was tired. I was exhausted.

Some pupils revised for months before the tests

My parents were telling me not to worry. That kind of helped, but the teachers were putting pressure on us, which made some kids really nervous.

In lessons, we were told we wouldn't be learning anything new, just going over the stuff we'd done before. It was quite boring to do it all again.

I was shaking the week before the exams. Only a few people were calm.

For the week of the exams, we would have a test in the morning and another in the afternoon.

The maths test was really hard because we hadn't done most of the stuff we were asked about.

The teachers told us to try to do our best on every question, even if we hadn't learned about it.

I did quite well and passed them all, but it's a lot of stress not knowing what's going to be in the exams.

Debayo, 11

Before the tests I was a bit nervous, but when we did them it wasn't too bad.

When I had to revise, I just got down to business.

The teachers were saying we had to work for them all the time.

Some of my class were really worrying. They were trying to skip school on the days of the tests, they were so nervous.

But the teachers said they would have to sit them anyway.

The teachers thought the tests were a good thing because they developed our understanding.

They were right because it made us understand what we'd done before a bit better. The tests were quite useful in that way.

They helped me think about what I was doing.

But I think they shouldn't tell us about the tests until about a week before we do them.

My teachers told us we were going to do them at the end of the school year before. So we had a whole year to think about them.

I revised for a month and a half before the exams started. It was too long.

The teachers said it was really, really important for getting on well when we went to secondary school and it would help us understand the subjects there.

I revised quite a lot. When I got home each night, I went straight to the library or worked with my revision textbooks.

I think that work made the exams a bit easier. It helped me understand some things I wasn't sure about before.

My parents paid for a tutor for a bit, but I didn't like him. He kept criticising my work, which I didn't like.