Teachers vent anger at SATS punctuation police

TEACHERS have attacked “punctuation police” who mark down children’s SATS for incorrect use of commas and semi-colons.

Frustrated staff complained about a new marking scheme after children were penalised for putting punctuation points in the wrong place or even failing to draw apostrophes with sufficient curve.

Teachers used social media to say that their pupils had been marked down for semi-colons that were too high on the line and for writing answers that strayed slightly outside their allotted boxes. They also said they did not have access to the extended marking criteria.

Michael Rosen, a poet, tweeted: “The punctuation police demand that the mark has to be drawn correctly and at the right angle.”

James Bowen, the assessment expert at the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “Markers having to fret about the angle or the exact space between a word and punctuation show that we have lost a sense of perspective when it comes to these tests and questions, the very purpose of a spelling and grammar test.”