SOUTHAMPTON’S education chief has backed a group of head teachers who have blasted the government for “unfair” changes to exams sat by city youngsters.

The city council’s cabinet member for education, Darren Paffey, said he hoped the government would “listen to this experience” after the number of children achieving the minimum standard dropped.

Cllr Paffey, a university lecturer, said it was unfair that an 11-year-old should be expected to have the reading standard of a 15-year-old.

“We do want to improve standards,” he said. “What we need to do is listen to the experts , these are the people with the children every day. We need to work out together what is an acceptable standard.”

He added that he thought a review of the Sats curriculum was “necessary”.

His comments come after a letter was sent to parents of primary school children by head teachers of primary schools in Southampton who say there are “major problems with the design and implementation” of this year’s assessments.Provisional results showed children in the city were either in line with or behind the national average.

This year’s results are the first since the new, tougher Sats curriculum for Year 6 pupils was introduced in 2014.

In overall reading, writing and maths Southampton is in line with the national pass rate of 53 per cent of students, with students in line with the average on maths and better in writing.

However they were behind the national average in reading and grammar, spelling and punctuation.

The letter to all parents of primary school children in Southampton, signed by the leaders of the Southampton Primary Headteachers’ Conference which has Sholing Junior School’s Marc Parnell as chairman and Bitterne Primary School’s Andy Peterson as vice chairman, says that the results and outcomes for children, “will be statistically invalid”.

It said: “As school leaders, we believe that there are major problems with the design and implementation of this year’s government assessments in schools.

“We believe that, for the reasons outlined above, the results and outcomes for children, and the wider set of national data produced on the outcomes, will be statistically invalid.

“We look forward to working with our professional bodies and the government to arrive at a more straightforward, easily understood and, above all, fairer system next year. We would welcome your support as parents on this.”

Education secretary Nicky Morgan, above, has said it is “no surprise” results looked different the first time children have had to tackle the “more rigorous” system.

She added that youngsters must “master” the basics of reading, writing and mathematics early.

“The simple truth is that if they don’t, they’ll be left playing catch up for the rest of their lives," Ms Morgan said.

“This is the first year we have assessed pupils under the new more rigorous system and it is no surprise that this year’s results look different to previous years, but despite that the majority of pupils have achieved above and beyond the new expected standard.”