DESPITE truly encouraging results by East Lancashire primary schools in this year's National Curriculum tests, increasing numbers of teachers are rejecting the league tables that arise from them.

But if there is validity in their contention that the tables do not demonstrate all the achievements of a school, it does not follow that their value and the necessity for them is flawed overall.

Indeed, their fundamental purpose and importance is clearly spelled out in this year's best-ever results by our region's 11-year-olds -- in which pupils in Lancashire County Council schools did better than the national average in all three core subjects and those in Blackburn and Darwen were shown to be fast catching up with it.

Does not this display the beneficial stimulus of the tests and tables -- one that encourages schools, their teachers and pupils to do better year on year and to try harder if they do not? And, particularly in their primary years when children need to acquire the vital basics of learning, is it not crucial that the highest standards are sought and inspired?

There can be no legitimate criticism on that score of the wholesome pressure that the tests place on the education system. But it is true that the tables do not reflect the underlying influences on each school's performance -- such as their differing intakes, social and economic conditions on their pupils and class sizes. Nor do they accurately show how much progress is being achieved along the way to bring pupils up to the levels expected of them during their time in primary school.

Yet if ways have still to be found to reflect these things and give added value to the tables, it does not follow that the crude comparisons that exist at present or that the testing system is basically bad. On the contrary, as today's reassuring results prove, they demonstrate how valuable they are.