School tests for 11-year-olds should be scrapped because the grades are being manipulated to meet government targets, teachers said today.
National tests, known as Sats, put too much pressure on primary school children and get in the way of real education, according to delegates at the Professional Association of Teachers' (Pat) annual conference.
And the final results are becoming "increasingly meaningless" as standards are eased to meet the political objective to increase the proportion of children getting good marks.
Geraldine Everett, from Hazel Primary School in Leicester, told the conference that pupils were being used as "political footballs" and "tested to destruction".
"Exam stress is a serious issue for young teenagers," she said.
The primary school curriculum has become too narrow as many teachers are required to drill pupils for Sats at the expense of other classes, she said.
Westminster should follow the examples of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly and abolish formal testing for 11-year-olds, she said.
"Political interference has meant that the standards and the basis of the tests has been changed frequently in an effort to achieve government targets - massaging," she said.
"The actual results have become increasingly meaningless."
Pupils should have their first formal tests at the age of 14, before they choose their GCSE options, Ms Everett added.
The conference, in Buxton, Derbyshire, voted overwhelmingly in favour of her motion, which called for the end of "formal and external testing" for pupils at primary school.
The union's demand follows moves by the government to tone down national tests for seven-year-olds, announced last year.
