Write a story about your holiday.

"Write a story about your holiday..." the teacher would say, day one at the start of a new school year. And, if you listened carefully, you could almost hear them whisper, "and leave me the f*** alone." Well, the wizards who wrote the SATs exams would have outdone themselves to set any task so coherent.

Snuck in amongst politics and business this week, you may have noticed that SATs testing - a compulsory exam in English, Maths and Science for 14 years olds - has been scrapped.

Unless you're under 23, or a teacher, you won't have experienced the exquisite pointlessness of the SATs experience. Feel like you've missed out? Worry not - let me take you there.

The only thing to be said for SATs, from a teachers' point of view, is that they were externally marked. No one cared: even the kids knew they were pointless. I think the best reason we could give them to do well - other than, of course, the much documented intrinsic desire to succeed so deeply ingrained in UK Youth Culture - was that it affected setting for GCSEs. Now that's inspiration. You'd find yourself saying things like, 'OK, good lesson needed today, your SATs are only weeks away', then later crawl into the crowded corner of the staff room reserved especially for self-loathing, avaricious sellouts who'll say anything to buy a quiet hour on a Thursday afternoon. Guilty, and guilty about it.

The other thing of note is how unbelievably badly written they usually were: invigilating a SATs exam in 2003 was a case in point. There were 4 invilgilators: two pros (oh, the glamour) and 2 teachers.

It went like this:

0900 Time starts.

0901 A handful of kids have read the writing task and already put their hands up. Idiots, I think, it's Sats, how can they not understand the question?

0903 All but 4 of the students in the room have their hands up.

0904 Invilgilators meet at front to try to work out what to tell the students.

That's because the question went something like this:

Imagine you are Macbeth, about to murder King Duncan. In pen, send an email to your wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her that she influenced you - without your knowledge - to kill King Duncan, an act you will carry out shortly. You should demonstrate both knowledge of the text and formal email writing skills in your response. You may use ideas from the reading paper. You may not use vowels.

They were always ridiculous, the marking deeply questionable, and no one - no one - cared. Except the Head, because they contributed to league tables, one of the single most hated, idiotic and divisive things ever brough to UK education.

SATs are being replaced with a teacher's report on the kids. How much better is that? It really doesn't need 3 exams, outsourced to a company in the States for marking - to confirm that Charile is a tool and has yet to reach the reading ago of... a tool, nor that Ivana is a genius and so on.

OK, ok, it's easy to be critical of government decisions. It's also quite fun, so join in whenever you can. Adios.