An MP has urged the Prime Minister to support calls to end the 11-plus test because of the stress it puts on children.

Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield raised the issue in Prime Minister’s questions today.

She asked: “As it is Mental Health Awareness week, does the PM agree with the Labour party that it is time to scrap tests for teenage children, such as SATs and in Kent the 11-plus, that we know cause them to experience stress, anxiety and a sense of failure?”

Rosie Duffield urges the Prime Minister to scrap the 11-plus and SATS

But the Prime Minister gave the MP short shrift, saying that tests were beneficial to children.

Theresa May said: “What is important is that when children go through education, they get the right education for them and schools are providing the right quality of education.”

She said it was right that schools were able to make judgements “that enable them to know about where their children are in relation to their learning” through simple tests and “it was right that they continue.”

The Canterbury MP has become a vocal opponent of selective schooling.

She previously described grammars as "a Tory vanity project" and said they were not the way forward.

She has voiced concerns over the separate expansion plans by two grammar schools in her constituency, saying that it amounts to the building of new grammar schools - something prohibited by legislation.

Barton Court in Canterbury and Faversham's Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School have launched bids to open a new coastal grammar.

However, she has faced some criticism for her views, after it emerged her two sons went to a grammar school in the county.

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