Gary Eason BBC News Online at the NASUWT conference

Jane Davidson stressed the distinctiveness of Welsh policy

English delegates at the annual conference of the NASUWT union, being held in Llandudno, warmly endorsed the scrapping of school league tables in Wales.

They applauded the visiting Welsh assembly Education Minister, Jane Davidson.

But they gave her a warning that a reduction in externally-marked tests must not be allowed to increase teachers' workloads if they had to assess their pupils' progress.

Information for parents

In her speech to the conference, Ms Davidson stressed her distinctive "made in Wales" education policies.

Among those, she said testing of seven-year-olds happened for the last time in 2002.

The secondary school league tables had also been ended.

Instead, annual reports from schools allowed parents "to make informed decisions using whole school information rather than crude results alone," she said to more applause.

A further burst of approval from the hall followed an attack on the English education department's "fresh start" policy of closing failing schools and reopening them with a new name and leadership.

"Closing and reopening schools under a 'fresh start' approach is not appropriate in a country committed to local comprehensive education," she said.

"We need to improve standards in the worst-performing schools and break the link between underachievement and poverty."

'Failed policy'

Ms Davidson also said the independent Daugherty review of the testing of 11 and 14-year-olds was proposing diagnostic skills tests in primary schools and a greater emphasis on teachers' assessments.

The NASUWT's deputy general secretary, Chris Keates, in reply singled out the scrapping of league tables.

"You are to be congratulated for making the decision - which has now left the Westminster government as the only part of the UK clinging to the wreckage of this failed policy," she said.

But on the removal of testing, Ms Keates told Jane Davidson the big issue for the union was what was put in its place.

"Teacher assessment is workload intensive."

Workload warning

She warned: "It was this union which took action to get external markers to reduce the workload of teachers."

The benefit of getting rid of tests would be dissipated rapidly if there was not "genuine consideration" of what was to be put in their place.

She also said the union would resist any separation of teachers' pay and conditions in Wales from those of their English counterparts.

And she complained that schools were trapped in the middle of an "unseemly squabble" between the Welsh Assembly Government and local education authorities on the issue of funding the agreement to reduce teachers' workload.

"We cannot move forward until we are clear how much money there is, who has it and where it is going."