Sats are wrongly marked ... after 11 weeks

A school forced to wait 11 weeks for its Sats results is sending them back because the marks are "wrong".

St Albans Girls' School received grades this week after waiting since 8 July for results of tests taken by 14-year-olds.

But the marks awarded to top pupils for English are wildly inaccurate, according to headteacher Christine Murrell. She said staff were furious and called for Sats to be axed.

"Students were very disappointed. They wanted to know how well they did - it's human nature," she said. "We know that the marking is wrong."

The number of pupils scoring Level 7 - the highest grade - in English tests were "30 to 40 per cent down" on what teachers predicted, she said.

"We know that's not right. My teachers are good at marking, they are professionals. They know the levels that the students are at. Not only are the results very late, they are not marked properly either, which really begs the question, why do we have to do them?"

Headteachers are predicting that a record number of schools will request grade reviews this year amid concern that the quality of marking is worse than ever.

Mrs Murrell said the Government's National Assessment Agency had been telling the school for some time that its results were available when they were not. In desperation, she wrote to Schools Secretary Ed Balls this week, but has not even received an acknowledgment of her message.

The fiasco delayed results for 1.2 million children across England this summer after administrative chaos hit the marking system. More than 100,000 pupils broke up for the long holiday without knowing their grades.

The firm that ran the tests this year, ETS Europe, has had its government contract dissolved and an inquiry is under way into what went wrong.

Officials insist 99.9 per cent of Sats for 11-year-olds and

99.7 per cent for 14-year-olds have now been marked. But Selborne primary in Perivale was still waiting for results, according to reports. Other schools have recently received deliveries of unmarked exam scripts. The row could delay this year's official league tables.