Following on from the news that teenagers have been marking the SATs the Tories are now going to have their own review of the SATs fiasco alongside Labour’s review. Ed Balls has also written a letter to the Chair of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, Barry Sheerman, to update him on developments in relation to National Curriculum testing the delivery of Key Stage 2.

“Further to last week’s Select Committee hearing, at which I announced the terms of reference of the Sutherland inquiry, I am writing to update you further on developments in relation to National Curriculum testing and the delivery of 2008 Key Stage Two and Three tests.

As I said when I appeared before your committee last week, our first priority has been to ensure that schools receive their 2008 results in an orderly way with the minimum of delay. I am advised that 98 per cent of Key Stage Two results are now available to schools online, as well as 85 per cent of Key Stage Three results – 93 per cent of maths results, 91 per cent of science results and 71 per cent of English results.

I share the frustration and anger of teachers, children and parents about the delays in the release of test results. Whilst the large majority of test papers have now been marked and results released to schools, I am concerned that schools should get outstanding results as soon as possible.

In a statement issued over the weekend, the QCA have confirmed that they are in discussions with ETS Europe following the unacceptable delays in delivering this year’s National Curriculum test results. In that statement, the QCA say that it is considering all available options to allow the timely conclusion of the work for the 2008 test series, and to secure a successful 2009 programme. I attach a copy of the QCA statement.

The contract with ETS Europe was drawn up and has been managed by QCA, at arms length from Ministers, to ensure the independence and objectivity of the testing regime. Any discussions about the contract are legally a contractual matter for the QCA and ETS Europe. At this stage, I believe it is very important and in the public interest that the QCA should be able to conclude these discussions in a timely and orderly fashion in order to safeguard the interests of pupils, schools and taxpayers.

At the same time, Ofqual, the independent regulator of qualifications, exams and tests in England, have assured me that they continue to monitor the quality of the marking of the tests, will consider the evidence in relation to any problems that are brought to its attention, and will act accordingly.

I am determined that we learn the lessons of this year’s experience, and I am confident that Lord Sutherland’s independent inquiry will be of great value in this regard. The independent inquiry will look at all the issues surrounding the test delays, including the specification and procurement of the contract with ETS.

Both the work of Ofqual and the Sutherland inquiry are designed to secure public confidence that the system is being appropriately regulated and scrutinised at arms length from the government, and I hope they will be useful to the Committee’s own activities.

As I said to the Committee last week, I welcome your recent report on testing and assessment, to which we have responded in writing, and I look forward to discussing this in more detail after the summer. I welcome your support for the principle of externally assessed national tests. We do not want to return to the past situation where school accountability was weak, parents lacked good information about their child’s progress, and as a result many children fell behind in their education and development.

At the same time, as I said to the Committee last week, the current testing and assessment regime is not set in stone. Indeed, in the Children’s Plan we highlighted the potential opportunities presented by our Making Good Progress pilot, where pupils are entered for single level tests when their teacher judges them to be ready. One potential advantage of this system is that it could promote more personalised teaching that is focused on helping each child, at whatever level they are working; make the greatest progress they can. Another is that because each child is entered for assessments when teachers judge them to have achieved the standard, the temptation to teach to the test in a narrow way should be reduced.

But it is important we evaluate the case for change before making decisions. As I said to the Committee, the pilot runs to next July and is being externally evaluated. I have asked for an interim report in the autumn, and I will be happy to share this with you.

I very much welcome the constructive work of your Committee in this important area. I will keep you informed of developments over the summer. I look forward to appearing again before you and your Committee members to discuss these matters.

I am copying this letter to the Speaker and to Michael Gove MP and David Laws MP and I have also placed a copy in both libraries of the House.

ED BALLS MP”

Taken from a National Paper:

“If he wasent doing enthing els heel help his uncle Herry at the funfair during the day. And had stoody at nigh on other thing he did was invent new rides.”

8/12 for composition. 5/8 for Sentence Structure!

“Quickly, it became apparent that Pip was a fantastic rider: a complete natural. But it was his love of horses that led to a tragic accident. An accident that would change his life forever. At the age of 7 he was training for a local competition when his horse, Mandy, swerved sideways unexpectedly, throwing Pip on to the ground, paralysed.”

7/12 for composition. 5/8 for Sentence Structure!

How can the marking be this bad?

We haven’t – despite us being assured they would be available today! So, if the results are available today now they still won’t go out until the last day of term because of the UNISON strike! It appears we are not the only ones if you read the comments at the bottom of this BBC news article about how there are still test papers unmarked!.

Two of the comments sum this up for me, the first by Paul Heffernan:

“This is verging on scandalous. A tremendous waste of money (any of which has been paid to the contractor must now be repaid to the taxpayer (assuming the contract was correctly drawn up by the brains who devised the whole SATS scheme (don’t hold your breath!)). The system must be scrapped. Let teachers teach – not coach children to pass tests which arguably indicate nothing more than the teachers already know about a given child’s abilities. Year 6 children have little or nothing to gain from the results – the decision on secondary school is generally already made. Year 9 can take internal end of year tests to decide on their subjects/class for year 10 onwards – just as we did years ago. It’s straighforward, immediate, more constructive and significantly cheaper. Can we put the funding where it belongs – with the schools and the teachers, and stop this obsession with outsourcing/centralising/targets etc etc. “

The second by J Redmond:

“My school has no English results or papers for our Key Stage 2 children. No-one seems to know where they are. Unless I’ve missed something, it is the 15th. We were promised all results by the 15th, already a week late and all papers returned. Not a bean. Nothing. Just some very limp apologies and some incredible incompetent people. If I did my job this badly….”

The head of one of the NAHT, Mick Brookes, says the SATs test results, which are already expected to fall by 2%, may need to be annulled. He said some schools had not had their children’s test scripts returned, some had had them returned unmarked, some had been returned to the wrong schools. But the greater concern was that the “hot house” pressure on the markers to get the job done “is bound to lead to greater mistakes”. This was particularly so in English, and in the writing element of the English tests, which was far more time consuming than the simpler right or wrong answers in maths.

Ken Boston, the head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, today told MPs he is exploring “legal avenues” after he was forced to send 70 of his own staff into ETS, which was contracted to run the national tests to sort the debacle out.

Boston, speaking in front of the commons select committee, said that the majority of schools would get their results by the end of this week but an unnamed number would have to wait until September to inform pupils of their results.

According to the BBC Head teachers are reporting “widespread problems” with the quality of marking in the delayed Sats test results being returned to schools in England.

“The row is only beginning,” says Mick Brookes, leader of the National Association of Head Teachers. Mr Brookes is urging heads to give parents the assessments of teachers, as well as any disputed test results. The National Assessment Agency has given assurances that the marking will be as good as last year’s. The NAHT head teachers’ union says that schools are reporting concerns about the reliability of the marking in scripts being returned.

This comes a day after a former Ofsted chief, Lord Sutherland, was selected to head an inquiry into the embarrassing failure to deliver this year’s Sats tests results on time.

This year’s Sats results have been delayed by a week following marking problems. Ed Balls wrote to the Chair of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, Barry Sheerman, to inform him that the National Assessment Agency (NAA) expects there to be some delays to the release of Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 national curriculum test results to schools. According to the NAA site, which includes a FAQ about the lateness of the results:

“The arrangements for marking the national curriculum tests this year have been different from previous years. There is a new marking contractor, ETS Europe, and a series of additional checks to give greater assurance of high quality marking.

The main causes of this delay are the lateness in the completion of the marking process and a series of technical issues. This is a serious failure by ETS Europe for which we apologise to schools, pupils and parents.

We understand that this delay will inconvenience many schools, and we share their frustration and disappointment. The National Assessment Agency will take every measure at its disposal to ensure that all results are delivered as quickly as possible. “

The BBC have a good “What went wrong” analysis for those that want the full details!

What does this mean to schools? Detailed results and end-of-year reports, annoyed children and parents and the question which I’m sure every teacher is ansking themselves – what was wrong with the way it was marked last year!

We, as I’m sure every school that’s had the papers back, has gone through and added them up themselves and used the thresholds to work out the level!

Primary schools in England should not be inflicting stress on
seven-year-olds by treating national tests like exams, the children’s secretary
has said. Ed Balls said SATs days should be like any other and that pupils should not
be aware that they were being tested.

In May, a Commons committee said inappropriate testing of children at seven,
11 and 14 could be damaging. It is feared that drilling children for tests – with results in school
"league tables" – narrows their education. Mr Balls told the New Statesman magazine:

"The best head teachers will ensure
that no six or seven-year-old knows they are doing Sats. I promise you that is
the case.  If you are telling pupils in Year 2 that they are doing Sats next week then
that’s the wrong thing to do. You should not be stressing the children."

He said the tests did not need to be done in a "sit-down" environment, but
could be carried out as part of the school day.

Why not just remove them all together?

Have you had your SATs back.  I know a number of schools that still haven’t!  I advise you to check your stock room though – they are returned this year in a plain brown box that looks like every other box that comes into school on a daily basis!

From the Guardian: The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, pledged to scrap national Sats tests and called for a shorter school curriculum in a speech attacking the government’s “one-size-fits-all” approach to education.

In a speech at the CentreForum thinktank, Clegg said that the money saved from scrapping key stage tests for seven- and 14-year-olds would be ploughed into early assessment at age five and a huge expansion of one-to-one reading and numeracy tuition. The party would introduce a much shorter curriculum and allow all schools the curriculum freedoms currently enjoyed by academies. Clegg said,

“By scaling back some of the excessive national testing … we will save millions of pounds. And the money can be put directly into improving basic skills for those who presently fall behind from day one, and never catch up. “My intention is to use testing to target support – not merely to target criticism.

One-to-one tuition for five-, six- and seven-year-olds has been shown to have huge benefits.”

An independent “education standards authority” would tackle accusations of dumbing down by ensuring exam standards. It would incorporate Ofsted and commission research on good educational practices and give advice to schools. The DCSF would be halved in size and focus only on setting the broad strategic goals of the education system and the legal frameworks.

“Ministers would have to stop sending their regular diet of directives and diktats to schools. In fact I’d ban them from doing it – with an education freedom act.”

Targets would be changed to make schools address the needs of all pupils, not just those on the border between key grades.

Sounds like sense to me…

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Schools and markers say there are problems with this year’s Sats according to the BBC. Some schools could not access the registration system (including us) they needed to complete so that markers know which pupils’ work they should have.

Markers’ complaints include a lack of organisation and communication by the company running England’s school tests this year for the first time, ETS. The National Assessment Agency (NAA) says it is confident all will go well. ETS (Educational Testing Service) is a US-based non-profit organisation with extensive test administration experience in some 180 countries.

It was awarded a five-year £156m contract by the NAA a year ago. This covers the tests that all of England’s 11 and 14-year-olds are taking and the Year 7 progress tests. Here are some of the problems faced, as posted on the TES website:

* When contracts for the work were sent out by ETS, some markers were told they had been chosen on the basis of their previous year’s performance – even though this was the first time they had done it.

* Others were sent a contract for the wrong subject – or more than one contract.

* Sometimes efforts to contact ETS by phone or e-mail went unanswered.

* In some cases people’s references were taken up after contracts had been sent out.

* One marker received a request for a reference about her – sent to herself at her home address.

* There was confusion over training venues, complaints about the training itself and the late dates at which everything was being done.

Problems seem to have been compounded by a new procedure this year intended to tighten up the selection of suitable markers. They had to pass an online “standardisation” assessment of their marking consistency. They were given two attempts to pass this or face being struck off as a marker. But those who attempted it last weekend were initially all told they had failed – even if they had not.

The NAA said this had affected only some 200 out of some 5,000 markers and they would all be contacted to explain the situation, with those who had indeed failed at the first attempt being given a second chance as planned.