The general secretary of Bermuda's teaching union has said parents should keep their children at home if they do not want them to take controversial exams next month, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

The Bermuda Union of Teachers (BUT) is strongly opposed to six-year-old children taking the Terra Nova exam next month.

The union believes the children are too young to be examined and thinks teachers are far better placed to assess the development of children at that age.

Earlier this month, the union urged Education Minister Senator Milton Scott to scrap the exams, but he has stood firm and said the children will sit the tests.

BUT general secretary Michael Charles told The Royal Gazette last night: "The Association of School Principals is also against this but they have been directed to implement these tests.

"Parents are the only ones who can prevent their kids from doing this.

"If the parents feel strongly enough about this they should keep their kids home or send them in with a note saying they don't want to do it.

"We have grave concerns about testing children at this age and feel its an inappropriate age to put kids through a standardised test.

"What are they testing for? They claim that by reducing class sizes, they want to find out what impact it has on the kids, but how would you know what impact if the kid has never been tested before? "There is no baseline to judge against. The Minister is saying they will compare them with children aged six in the United States.

"But in the US they have difficulty comparing children from state to state.

Do you compare inner city kids with those from the suburbs? "We feel the very fact of reducing class sizes gives the teacher the chance to assess each kid individually.

"When a teacher has had a kid for a year it should know its strong points.

All this is doing is giving them a test where they fill in the circles.

"What happens with the results? It labels them for a year or two based on what they did that one day.

"How long does that label last and is it a true reflection of that kid? Maybe they had a bad night, maybe they had no breakfast that day, maybe their parents had a fight.

"In one day you are going to label a kid whereas a teacher has the kids all this time and can tell a different story.'' Sen. Scott could not be contacted for comment last night.