There is a lot more to do to improve the quality of education for children with special educational needs, according to a Labour MP.
Speaking ahead of the third reading of her private members' bill calling for better information on children with learning difficulties, Sharon Hodgson said the current system was too focussed on measuring exam results rather than wellbeing.
She told ePolitix.com that better information enables charities to "campaign for better outcomes".
"One of the main things we're pushing for, although it isn't on the face of the bill, is improvements to teacher training with regard to special educational needs (SEN)," she added.
"This is a major undertaking that we're hoping the government will consider."
The Gateshead East and Washington West MP said publishing the information would "highlight best practice but also areas where there are concerns".
"What we'll be able to do then is see which local authorities are having the best outcomes for children with SEN and find out what they're doing right and disseminate it across the whole country," she said.
She insisted this would not amount to "more league tables", but would "find out where things are happening well and to spread that best practice".
The Commons children, schools and families committee recently published a report calling for national school tests to be scaled back.
And Hodgson, a member of the committee, said there was some "very persuasive evidence that there is an element of teaching to the test".
"But I think on the whole tests and assessments are needed to a) find where the teaching is good so you can learn from that, and b) to find where the teaching is poor," she added.
"We're supposed to be testing the teaching and I think sometimes it gets turned round because in order for the teacher to prove how well they're teaching, the child has to take the test.
So there is an element of the onus being put onto the child which puts pressure on them to achieve. It's an unintended consequence."
She said that vulnerable people were receiving a good education "on the whole".
But she warned that too often parents are "fighting against the system to try and get the help that their child needs".
"It shouldn't be up to the parents to fight to get the teaching and support that their child needs to be able to access the curriculum," she said.
"It should come automatically from within the school. Sometimes often you've got the parent battling with the school or local authority and it shouldn't be a fight.
"So much relies on the parents being up to that fight and up to that battle. So the children of parents who maybe aren't, that's when it is up to the school and the teachers to have that parenting responsibility for the children."
