Fresh Start primary gets zero for cheating

An flagship London primary school is the centre of embarrassing allegations that it cheated in this year's national tests.

Springfield in Hackney was among three primary schools in London and the South-East shamed in this year's league tables.

Exam watchdogs quashed their English, maths and science scores and awarded the schools zeros.

The row will reignite the debate about pressure to boost grades to climb national league tables after top private school St Paul's threatened to pull out on the grounds the tests were damaging teaching.

Springfield's plunge to the foot of the table is particularly humiliating for the Government, as it is in its flagship Fresh Start programme for turning round failing schools.

Zeros have also been entered for Brockswood Primary in Hemel Hempstead and St Bernadette's Roman Catholic Primary School in St Albans, both in Hertfordshire, by the National Assessment Agency. It was unclear what the alleged malpractices were but others in the past have been exposed as helping pupils with the answers in the May tests.

It comes as the Evening Standard publishes league tables for all primary schools in London.

The NAA warned it could not be certain the three schools' entries in this year's Key Stage 2 tests were the "unaided work" of pupils.

An NAA spokesman said pupils' result may be "annulled or changed" following further investigation. He added that annulment for a group of children can follow allegations of schools trying "to gain advantage for their pupils".

Springfield headteacher Shanthi Ravi Varma, who arrived in 2005 to turn the school round, could not be contacted for comment today.

But a spokesman for the Learning Trust, the not-for-profit company that runs schools for Hackney council, said it was urgently investigating what happened in May.

Schools minister Lord Adonis said cheating in national tests was "unacceptable and unnecessary". In total, five schools had some or all their results annulled. The others are in Birmingham and Liverpool.

The National Association of Head Teachers claimed that the need to do well in tests placed heads and teachers under intolerable pressure, with the result that a minority cracked.

But Lord Adonis insisted: "Five out of over 13,000 primary schools is not at all representative of what is happening in our schools."

He added: "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 2 tests."

The row came as national figures show that only four out of 10 pupils are leaving primary school able to read, write and add up at the level expected of their age - even though they could achieve the standard by scoring less than 50 per cent in tests.

In London, 80 per cent of 11-year-olds reached the standard in English, the national average.

In maths it was 76 per cent - one point below the average. And in science it was 87 per cent, also a point behind the national figure.