IT is necessary for the performance of schools to be monitored and assessed, which is why, in principle, the Standard Assessment Tests (Sats) are a good idea.

By providing incentive and accountability, Sats have helped the Government drive up standards in schools - and the improvement in our primary schools was one of the Government's biggest achievements in its first term of office.

But the reliability of the tests is now in doubt. Two weeks ago, The Northern Echo highlighted that 75 per cent of Sats maths papers resubmitted to the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) were found to have been unfairly marked.

Yesterday, we learned of the sad case of a Newcastle headteacher who had resigned after confessing that she had altered pupils' papers before they were sent to be marked.

The AQA says this is an isolated case of cheating and that only 20 similar cases occurred last year. However, head Helen Quick appears to have turned herself in, driven by her own conscience, without being caught by the system. Is, then, the 20 cases a reliable figure, or are more teachers feeling the pressures to which Ms Quick succumbed?

It suggests that Sats are unreliable because a high proportion, on re-examination, are found to be wrongly marked, and also because that an unknown proportion reaching the markers are not the unadulterated work of the pupil. So, how reliable are the league tables which the tests produce?

Teachers, particularly headteachers who are not as poorly paid as some of their unions would have us imagine, have to accept, as teachers have done for generations, a certain level of stress in their jobs. Indeed, in a wider workplace driven by budgets, margins and targets, stress is a fact of life nowadays.

The Government yesterday said it sets "ambitious" targets for schools' Sats results. Ambition is good as it stretches people, but if it is unrealistic then it stretches them to breaking point - and Ms Quick appears to have snapped. How confident is the Government that its ambitions are not over-ambitious, causing teachers to buckle under the stresses of meeting them?

These are questions that the new Education and Skills Secretary Estelle Morris should address in an urgent review of Sats. A review is required if the public is to have any faith in the statistics the Government uses to show how it is improving school standards, and it is required if only to make sure that, in times of teacher shortages, those with the unblemished track record and time-tested dedication of Ms Quick are not being driven unnecessarily from their jobs.

Who cares?

CHRIS Evans has been sacked as a Virgin Radio presenter. You might have seen the speculation running at great lengths on some newspaper front pages - although you probably won't have heard Mr Evans' show. Do real people in the real world really care about Mr Evans's job prospects, or is it only a media infatuation because he has a young popstar bride and some colourful mates like Geri "Ginger" Halliwell and Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne?