The teaching profession should see the end of levels and SATs as an exciting opportunity.

This is the opinion of Russell Hobby from the National Association of Head Teachers, who believes educators and not politicians will be able to come up with a more appropriate assessment system after older SATs levels are phased out in June.

When the government announced its decision to drop leveled assessment as a national framework many schools and teachers were dismayed, viewing it as another significant upheaval in a profession that has been turbulent since the coalition came to power.

In a blog for the Guardian, Mr Hobby argues that there is nothing inherently wrong with levels as they "provided a shared professional language and, crucially, embodied the philosophy that children should be judged against objective criteria rather than ranked against each other" - an idea forwarded by Nick Clegg and swiftly rejected by heads.

This shared philosophy is the aspect the expert believes needs to be retained, as a national fragmentation could see up to 20,000 different assessments being used in schools. 

But he thinks other areas of the existing system were not perfect.

Mr Hobby wants the new system to offer a clear message of progression to all students, "from the most to the least able". Work will need to be done to improve communication too. He explained old levels were handy for data analysis, but offered little insight to a parent who was told their child was currently working at level 4.

Specifics raised by the expert included asking what are pupils actually good and bad at, and what do they need to do to improve?

The National Association of Head Teachers recently published its report on assessment and is now awaiting a full government response to the consultation on primary accountability.

As somebody looking for a teaching job, trained in the SATs era, do you believe teacher-led assessment will be an improvement or a further strain on resources?