PARENTS have backed calls for the influence of school exams such as Highers to be reduced.

The Scottish Parent Teacher Council said families were concerned an over-reliance on qualifications led to teachers "teaching to the test".

The comments came after independent educational consultant Keir Bloomer suggested schools should reduce the importance of "seriously distorting" exams and consider abandoning Highers in future.

He warned that secondary schools had become obsessed with delivering qualifications rather than developing the wider strengths of pupils.

And he said exams were now being used by employers and universities as the only measure of whether a candidate was suitable for a job or further study.

Eileen Prior, executive director of the SPTC, said: "While the evidence is that over-assessment and testing does not support good learning, we are moving in the opposite direction by testing and assessing our children more than ever.

"We also know it is not only academic results that determine how likely a young person is to succeed in later life, and exam results in themselves often do not prove anything about learning, just an ability to pass exams.

"A common worry from the parents we speak to is that the narrow focus of assessment leads to teaching to the test rather than deep learning and the ability to apply concepts to different circumstances."

The intervention comes after the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence in schools - which was supposed to reduce the burden of assessment on pupils and make learning broader.

However, Mr Bloomer, a former education director and chief executive of Clackmannanshire Council, said the system had not really changed.

He said: "We should be giving serious thought to reducing the impact of end of school exams and seeing where that got us so we could begin to judge how far down that road we go.

"I think there is a sense in which the upper part of secondary school is very focused on a form of grading young people, the main purpose of which is to allow others to make judgements about their suitability for a variety of purposes including employment and entering into higher education."