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PUPILS at a High Wycombe primary school are having to sit exams in hospital to stop the school slipping down the league tables.

Youngsters at Highworth Combined School, including one recently involved in an accident, have been handed SATS tests by teachers.

Headteacher Graham Kilner, said the move was needed as absent pupils scored a zero for the tests - and this could hit its position in league tables.

Yet, he said the Government imposed rule was unfair' on schools - and a teachers' leader called it "crazy".

The exams have been taken to the child in hospital this week, it is believed, as part of a national period of SATS testing.

Mr Kilner said: "At our school we have had experience in the past of children having to take SATS in hospital."

He said: "If a child is deemed medically fit to do a test then I think it is in the best interests of the child and the school for that to happen in the current climate."

League tables are drawn up by a school's total SATS marks - meaning absent children can bring the final score down.

Mr Kilner added: "The most unfair bit is if a child is ill; if something happens at home then the child gets a zero.

"The effect on the school and child is exactly the same if they did not get a single question right."

He said: "Heaven help any school which has an outbreak of chicken pox during the SATS because the results will make it look as if something at the school has gone wrong."

Mr Kilner said: "I think it questions the professionalism of teachers and the priorities of what we want for our children."

Testing pupils in hospital "wouldn't have happened 20 years ago" he added.

Des Hart, Eastern regional officer for the National Union of Teachers, said: "It is plain ridiculous. It indicates the amount of pressure that schools are under as a result of league tables to go such extremes."

The exams are taken by children aged seven, 11, and 14 to gauge their progress in English, maths and science. Pupils then take their GCSEs at 16.

Colin McGuffie, spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said: "Primary school performance tables are based on the results of all pupils in a school who are eligible for SATS including those absent or discounted from the tests."

He said tests "could be taken in a pupil's home, in a hospital or another school".

Yet the school's average point score - a single figure for results - does not include absent pupils, he said.

10:16am Friday 16th May 2008

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