Half a million children are 'given wrong grade' for Sats

HALF a million children are given the wrong grades in school tests every year, an official report suggests today.

Children taking Sats in English writing have only a slightly better than even chance of receiving the correct grades.

The failure to guarantee accurate marking in more than 55 per cent of the exams fuelled demands from teachers to abolish compulsory Sats.

Last year Sats results were delayed for 1.2 million children after blunders by test organisers. But inaccuracy in marking English tests is a bigger problem, the report suggests.

The main difficulty is that marking extended essay-style answers is a more subjective task than assessing maths or science papers.

Kathleen Tattersall, chairwoman of new exams watchdog Ofqual, said: "The high level of misclassification in English suggests significant cause for concern." Longer written answers were important to retain for subjects such as English but future tests must be more reliable, she added.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority compared marks awarded by junior and senior examiners on papers taken by 14-year-olds. Experts said the picture would not be significantly different for primary school Sats taken at the age of 11. The research found about 13 per cent of science tests for 14-year-olds were awarded the wrong levels.

In Maths almost all grades were correct. However, in English reading tests, 34 per cent of pupils had the wrong marks, most getting overly generous results.

English writing tests were even less reliable, with some 45 per cent of pupils typically receiving the wrong levels. Professor Alan Smithers, a specialist in exam standards from Buckingham University, said: "English marks tend to be more subjective than in maths but they ought to be more reliable than this." He said better markers, rather than simpler questions, were needed.

The number of requests for re-marks quadrupled last year.

In the wake of the scandal, Children's Secretary Ed Balls abolished Sats for 14-year-olds. However, he has rejected calls to abandon tests at the age of 11.

Today, school leaders renewed their demands for reforms. Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "We need a high-quality assessment system that provides useful data and represents good value for public money - Sats currently do neither."

A Department for Children spokesman said: "Pupils, parents and schools need to be able to rely on the consistency of test marking. Reliability of English marking in these studies at Key Stage 3 (age 14), which we have abolished, was too variable.

"QCA has committed to learning lessons to bring about improvements."