Browse Sections

• Education
• Special reports

Teachers slam SATs marking blunders

Kate Watkins
25/ 7/2008

HYNDBURN headteachers have joined schools across the country in a furious protest over the SATs fiasco.

The Government hired ETS, an American company, to mark exams for Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils, but there has been an outcry over an inconsistency in marking and the length of time it has taken to get the results back to pupils.

Most Hyndburn schoolchildren have recently received their marks for this year’s Standard Assessment Tests but the results were late and some were mis-marked.

At Woodnook Primary School in Accrington, youngsters are still waiting for their English results.

When headteacher Nicola Trayner contacted ETS last week, she received an email reply stating the examiner who was dealing with their SATs was on holiday and had not marked them.

ETS agreed to have the exam papers recollected and have an emergency marker grade them.

Mrs Trayner was also referred to as Ms Taylor in the email.

She said: "We still haven’t received our English results and, after several phone calls, had this response mailed to the school by ETS.

"The fact that I’m called Trayner and am stored on their database seems to have escaped them."

When the results for St Andrew’s Primary School, Oswaldtwistle, were returned to the school they were left in a hallway and not signed for by a member of staff.

And at Norden High School in Rishton one pupil who sat the exams was wrongly listed as absent and did not receive any results.

Headteacher Bob Flood said: "If they want to make sure SATs are valued they have to do something about it because the way the exams were handled this year was unacceptable.

"We have to call into question why they are doing them and what they want to do with them."

Nick Walker, headteacher of St Nicholas’ Primary School, Church, said that in addition to results being late, the quality of the marking was questionable.

He said: "We had several pupils who were eight marks short of Level 4, meaning they were just short of the vital quality level.

"The top mark is Level 6 but my main problem is with the pupils who were only a few marks short of Level 4. I have sent those back to be re-marked.

"OFSTED uses SATs results to grade schools and these few marks could have an impact on how a school is graded, so they are very important."

Spring Hill Primary School and St Mary Magadelen’s Primary School, both in Accrington, also reported late results but had no major problems with marking.