EAST Lancashire parents and teachers were given a damning verdict on standard assessment tests by a leading educationalist.

Dr Yvette Solomon of Lancashire University told an audience at the Nazareth Unitarian Chapel that SATS were counter productive, reducing education quality, the opposite effect to that desired by the government.

She argued that children were being forced to learn isolated facts without sufficient context because schools were being forced to play the system.

Children were not required to understand, just be able to satisfy the demands of the tests.

She added that teachers, parents and pupils were all put under undue and counter productive stress.

The also claimed that performance league tables lead to schools manipulating the system as to do well could bring great benefits and that would tend to widen the gap between poor schools and good ones.

Tony Cann who organised four "Burning Issue" lectures at the chapel said the series had given local people an opportunity to hear sometimes controversial opinions from national authorities in their field.

Another series is being planned for next year.