HEADS of some of England's top private and state schools last night came together to condemn league tables and demand their abolition.

Members of the Secondary Heads' Association and the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference have called on the Government to abandon tables based purely on grades scored by schoolchildren in any one year.

Many believe that published performance tables do not serve pupils, parents, heads, teachers or the general public.

Union representatives also called for them to be banned because they put pressure on rival schools to compete against each other.

On the first day of the Secondary Heads' Association's (SHA) annual conference in Bournemouth - ten heads, five-private, five-public - issued statements urging for reform.

At the conference, Chris Bridge, head of Huntingdon School in York, joined the calls for action.

He said: "League tables are like an old torch battery. What once gave energy to the system is now in danger of corroding the educational machine.

"At GCSE, they invite schools to concentrate resources on the grade C/D borderline pupils, when schools should be encouraged to raise the achievement of all."

The heads warned that the Government's preferred form of "value-added" league tables, which are supposed to show more clearly how a school has helped or hindered individuals, was little better.

A North-East spokesman for the National Association of Schoolmasters said tables put immense pressure on both staff and pupils and lead to competitiveness among schools.

He said: "For pupils, especially in Middlesbrough and Teesside where the number of pupils are not filling school places, there is great competition, They are competing against each other. This means that time is being used to get them to pass tests, and this is not the same as educating them.

"It puts pressure on both schools and kids. The whole idea of using tables is to set school against school."

In June last year, Dave Scott, head of Kirkby and Great Broughton CE Primary, near Stokesley, east Cleveland was suspended from his duties over allegations of irregularities in math tests for 11-year-olds.

Two months earlier, the head of Wyndham Primary at Newcastle, Helen Quick, quit after confessing to her bosses that she had altered answers in SAT papers.

Headteacher David Dunn, of Yarm School, Teesside, said: "There are some schools who find all sorts of ways of manipulating the tables.

"They do not enter some children's stats, or they enter them as external candidates, or persuade them to drop subjects. I am not saying that this is widespread, if they are under pressure this is one thing that they can do."

Mr Dunn, who has not called for the tables to be scrapped, believes they can provide useful information.

"I think that league tables can be useful but it is important for people to understand they are just one measure of how a school is doing. Some things such as extra-curricular activities or the development of a child's personality are not considered. At Yarm school we are more than results driven, we are people driven," he said.

A DfES spokesman said: "Ministers are committed to continue publication of performance tables.

"They provide a valuable source of easily accessible information to parents and the wider community."