A Cockermouth mother who believes there is too much emphasis on tests rather than teaching in schools is calling for parents to join her in protest.

Sara Brown is organising a play day in a town park on Tuesday and hopes parents will withdraw their children from school and join in to show their support.

She was inspired by a national campaign, Let Kids be Kids, which is calling for parents to take their children out of school for the day in opposition to the increased pressures being put on children and teachers by the Government.

More than 27,000 people have signed an online petition in support. Many of them are meeting in parks and woods throughout the country to take part in play days.

Primary school children do SATs in year two and year six. They are drawn up to assess children’s grasp of the recently introduced primary school national curriculum, which is widely considered to be harder than the previous one.

Sara, of Fell View, has two children, Finn, eight, and Freya, six, at Lorton Primary School.

She works with pre-school children.

She said: “My kids love school and I don’t want to boycott it but I think it’s important we show that we’re not happy with how education is going and the testing regime which is being forced on schools.

“We’re doing this in support of teachers and headteachers. There is more pressure being put on them to focus on tests rather than teaching.

She added: “I know of some schools that spend months and months focusing solely on SATs tests because there is so much pressure to do well these days. It’s become a competition which schools are forced to go along with because of Ofsted.”

She thinks children are far too young to be doing SATs at six and hopes people will show their support for the campaign.

She said: “Childhood is so precious and goes far too quickly. We just want to highlight the fact that kids are kids and need to play. It’s their social and communication skills we need to be developing, they do not need to be sat with their heads in books.”

Olivia Harrison is headteacher at Lorton school.

While she feels there is increased pressures on schools to meet higher standards she said her school does not focus on months of coaching children for tests, as many others do.

She said: "While I do agree the required level is too high and unnecessarily high for both of these year groups, I do not completely disagree with some form of testing – providing preparations are proportionate, the balance of the curriculum is maintained and children don’t suffer with stress by too much importance being placed on the test itself.

“The results our children achieve are very true results – not inflated due to pre test cramming.”

She has written to parents about the play day plan saying: “Might it be an option for parents considering removal of their children on that day to make a stand and say that they are happy to keep their children in school because they trust how Lorton manages the external pressures that are put upon us?”

Teresa Readmain, St Joseph’s School headteacher, said: “There’s been a definite raising of the bar in terms of testing, the standard has been signifiantly raised.

“The accountability of teaching being based on the testing regime does not give the whole story of the school.

“Teaching and learning is the most important thing for our children, we need to give them skills they will need for the future. I question whether these tests are testing that.”

The play event will be held at Harris Park at 9.30am on Tuesday. If the weather is bad they are asked to meet outside Wordsworth House, on Crown Street.