Primary heads find problems with SATs marking

A National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) poll shows that more than a third of the school leaders questioned had experienced problems with marking of standard assessment tests (SATs) that were “severe” or “outrageous”.

The warning came as Ministers confirmed that the current controversial SATs writing test for primary school pupils is to be axed.

In future, pupils’ writing skills will be assessed by their teacher throughout the school year.

However youngsters will face a tougher new test covering spelling, grammar, punctuation and vocabulary, which is set to be introduced in 2013. The move follows a recommendation made by an independent review of SATs, published last month.

The English and maths exams, taken by pupils at the end of primary school, are fiercely opposed by teaching unions, with a boycott held last year by the NAHT and National Union of Teachers (NUT).

According to the NAHT’s survey of 1,689 members, published yesterday, some 93.1 per cent of those questioned said they had found problems with the marking of this summer’s writing test.

More than one in four said there were problems with the reading paper, which makes up the other half of the English test, and more than one in 10 warned of problems with the maths exam.

Overall, three in four heads reported problems with the quality of marking of the tests. NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby said the union had been overwhelmed by the number of complaints.

He added: “There is a real sense that the efforts of teachers and pupils have not been matched by the quality of the system.

“Tests are not the objective benchmark they are sometimes made out to be – there are other ways of measuring how well pupils achieve, methods which take account of creativity and capture the breadth of what children need to learn in schools these days.”

NUT general secretary Christine Blower, welcomed the decision to scrap the SATs writing test but said Government plans for a separate test for grammar and punctuation were “disappointing.” She added: “If we are trusting teachers to assess writing across a range of genres, that should also include pupils’ technical writing skills.”