TEACHERS and governors are being asked to sign a petition demanding an end to controversial SATs tests at the centre of a marking fiasco which has left one Ealing school still waiting for results.

Selborne Primary School, in Perivale, will be the last in the borough to receive its English results, which were due in early July but were delayed because of problems with marking contractor EST Europe.

Now Ealing NUT is spearheading a local campaign on behalf of the Anti-SATS Alliance, which wants the Standard Attainment Tests to be scrapped in favour of a more general assessment of pupils' progress.

Critics say the exams detract from important primary school activities such as sport, art and music by placing an unnecessary emphasis on fixed academic achievements.

Nick Grant, of Ealing NUT, said: "It's important to get as concrete a statement as possible from all stake-holders in education that if SATs were ever relevant, they are now past their sell-by date.

"The longer the Government continues with this debate, the nearer we will be to another year of nonsense.

"It's not just the administrative issue with the marking, it's an educational issue because they are a fundamentally unsound as a way of assessing students' progress. It's an insult to teach-ers and students to claim that SATs are complex enough to give decent information to parents or teachers."

More than half of Ealing's 14-year-olds were left waiting for overdue key stage three results as they broke up for the summer holidays in July, and 11-year-olds at 12 primary schools were left waiting for their English, science or maths results.

Selborne Primary is still waiting for around half of its key stage two results for English, which are expected in the coming weeks.

But despite slamming this year's marking fiasco, deputy council leader and education spokesman Ian Gibb supports SATs and believes they should continue.

He said: "As a principle I think they give valuable information to parents to see how the children are progressing and the schools are performing. It's also helpful to teachers, so they have a standards benchmark.

"It's important for parents to have as much information as possible, but it has to be in conjunction with other things such as Ofsted reports. SATs are an important part of that information."