School leaders’ union NAHT, who represent leaders in the majority
of primary schools in England, have raised their deep concerns
about the management of end of primary school SATs this year,
after a growing number of complaints regarding missing – and even
incorrectly allocated – marks for pupils.
Following numerous complaints from members, and reports on social
media last week from schools who had not received marks for some
pupils, NAHT have raised their concerns about the potential
problems with the Department for Education and the Standards and
Testing Agency, but have been given no clear answer as to the
scale of the issue.
NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: “As things stand, the
government is unable to tell us just how many children have been
given incorrect marks for their SATs this year, and how many
papers have gone missing.
“This is a deeply worrying position to be in – if the government
is unable to identify the scale of the problem, how can leaders
have confidence that they will be able to fix it?”
NAHT has been contacted by schools that have not only been told
that some completed SATs papers have gone missing, and therefore
their pupils will not be given any result, they have also
realised that, in some instances, marks have been assigned to the
wrong students, meaning some of the results given are incorrect.
Mr Whiteman continued: “It is unacceptable for the answer to the
government’s failed SATs delivery to be for children not to be
given any marks at all for their work. Parents will
understandably be outraged by that.
“And for schools to then find, on closer investigation, that some
of the marks they have been given are incorrect, hints at
complete chaos. It should not be up to schools to have to spend
hours double checking everything they’ve been told.
“The delivery of these tests has been beset with problems from
start to finish. We need an immediate investigation into what has
gone wrong, and the government must take urgent action to fix
it.”
Last week, a poll by Teacher Tapp suggested that 20 per cent of
primary teachers had KS2 SATs papers with marks missing. NAHT has
since raised further concerns with the STA about marks being
incorrect as well.
This comes after huge frustration on results day as the ‘primary
assessment gateway’ website delivering the results – outsourced
by the DfE to delivery partner Capita – crashed, resulting in
hours of delays accessing results.
Mr Whiteman concluded: “If schools are to obliged to spend the
time implementing these tests, the least parents and children
should be able to expect is a system that operates well. For a
government that prides itself on efficient delivery, this is the
latest in a long line of failures and mismanagements when it
comes to exams and assessments, and it simply isn’t good enough.
“School staff all play their part, take it seriously and do
exactly what is expected – and the penalties for mistakes are
severe. We should be able to expect the same standards from
government.
“This needs to be put right urgently, and the government needs to
listen to school leaders on what has gone wrong so that it does
not happen again.”
