SATs results quashed after claims changes were made to papers

PRIMARY HEADTEACHER DENIES THAT PUPILS’ WORK WAS AMENDED

SATS results at a primary school have been annulled following allegations of amendments being made to pupils’ test papers.

The headteacher of Acacias Community Primary School in Burnage denies any changes were made to the Year 6 pupils’ spelling tests last year.

Yet the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), a government watchdog, has written off children’s results in English grammar, punctuation and spelling. The school, rated as ‘good’ by Ofsted, was notified of the annulment before Christmas. Philip Webster, headteacher of Acacias, said the school was ‘limited in what it could say’ due to an ongoing investigation by the governing body. He said the school had been as transparent as possible with parents about the allegations.

Mr Webster said: “I can confirm that the school was notified on the 13th December of the decision by the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) to annul the results of our spelling paper for 2018 but the school is limited in what it can say as this is subject to an investigation by the school governing body (as required by STA).

“With regards to the school being less than transparent about the matter I can confirm that the school has complied with all the requirements of STA and in addition has written to all our current parents. We have only had one query and one request for further information, the query was resolved and the request for further information was to know the outcome of the investigation, which has not yet been completed, and the parent has been notified of this. The school considers that no amendments were made whilst the papers were on the school site and strongly disagrees with the decision by STA, but there is no appeal process.”

The Department for Education, responding on behalf of the STA, said: “Teachers and parents must have confidence in the integrity of the assessment system. Following an investigation by Standards and Testing Agency, results for key stage 2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling paper 2 were annulled. This will not adversely affect any of the pupils as the school can provide teacher assessment to demonstrate their progress in this subject.”