TEACHERS blamed the pressure of demands for improved test results for driving schools to cheat after a string of primary schools were stripped of their results for breaking the rules.
Investigations at five schools in England uncovered malpractice in their key stage two curriculum tests taken by 11-year-olds.
Four of the schools saw all their results wiped out in all three subjects –English, maths and science – while a fifth wa
s stripped of its English results.
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A spokesman for the National Assessment Agency, which is responsible for investigating such incidents, said officials had to be sure that children's answers "represent their own unaided work" otherwise a school could be stripped of its results.
The National Association of Head Teachers general secretary, Mick Brookes, said; "It is deeply sad to see some schools fall into the trap of malpractice.
"This demonstrates the extreme pressure that some schools and some teachers feel to perform to targets which may not reflect the ability of the children in their midst."
Among the schools hit by cheating allegations were two of the best-performing primaries in the country
St Charles' Catholic Primary School in Liverpool and Brockswood Primary School in Hemel Hempstead were sent to the bottom of the league tables. The other schools to lose all their results were St Bernadette's Roman Catholic Primary School in St Albans and Springfield Community Primary in Hackney, north London.
William Cowper Primary School in Birmingham had its English results annulled.
Schools Minister Lord Adonis dismissed claims that curriculum tests encouraged schools to cheat.
He said: "Clearly, five out of over 13,000 primary schools is not at all representative of what is happening in our schools and cannot be seen as any indication of national tests causing increased pressure on teachers.
"We do not accept the view that national tests dominate the primary curriculum – less than 0.14 per cent of teaching time is spent on key stage two tests."
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