Three pre-school children knocked on the door of 10 Downing Street to ask the Government not to make them sit controversial new school “tests,” Independent reported.

Hundreds of people, including other four-year-olds, parents, teachers and MPs, marched from Parliament Square to protest against a 20-minute “baseline assessment” that children could soon be sitting within their first term at school.

The children presented a petition of 65,000 signatures against the Government’s plans, addressed to schools minister Nick Gibb.

The British Educational Research Association, a charity encouraging educational improvement, has described the tests as “flawed, unjustified and totally unfit for purpose”.