STANDARDISED school tests will help teachers avoid ‘mistakes’ in their judgement of pupils, an expert has said.

Sue Ellis, professor of education at Strathclyde University, backed the assessments as opposition parties force a vote on the issue.

The Scottish Government introduced the tests to provide a more consistent way of assessing pupils across the country.

However, critics argue they are stressful for the youngest pupils and do not provide meaningful data in P1.

Writing in the Herald, the professor said: “Alerting educators to misunderstandings after one year in school makes sense. Mostly teachers notice these things, but people make mistakes.

"Teachers can learn from other professions. When medics introduced pre-operative ‘checklists’, they found postoperative complications dropped dramatically. Are teachers different from surgeons?

“In Scotland, professional judgments, not raw test scores, decide children’s attainment levels. Standardised assessments are a tool

to moderate such judgments across the country.”

The issue of standardised assessments is to be debated on Wednesday with the Conservative Party putting forward a motion for P1 tests to be halted.

However, the SNP attacked the Conservatives for a U-turn because its 2016 manifesto backed testing in P1, calling the party an “utter disgrace”.