SATS

There IS a national fiasco (as you so succinctly put it). The Government (who we all love and respect don’t we ….. I said DON’T WE ?????) have handed the contract for SATS marking to EDS – who have totally messed the entire thing up yet again.

@forumhostpb wrote:

There IS a national fiasco (as you so succinctly put it). The Government (who we all love and respect don’t we ….. I said DON’T WE ?????) have handed the contract for SATS marking to EDS – who have totally messed the entire thing up yet again.

Hey. . . .I work for HM gov *calls his mate in the revenue* and ask’s him too check PB pays ALL his taxes!

We’re ok. . . (some of us)

And for the gooner this info from the BBC news website

(Who is not linked to HM gov @bbc)

It sounds like a full floating ocean going teflon coated b a l l s up doesnt it?

Boxes of unmarked English test scripts are sitting uncollected in a school, despite the exam chief’s claim to MPs that delayed marking was 100% complete.

English tests taken by 11-year-olds at several schools were sent to a maths marker, who is also a head teacher at another school.

He has made repeated efforts to have them collected for marking.

Phil Hollman, one of the head teachers whose pupils’ test papers are still in these boxes, said he was “appalled”.

Schools had been promised that all the marking had been completed and as of Sunday night almost all marks had been entered into a computer system for publication online on Tuesday.

The current position is that in Key Stage 2 the marking is now 100% complete

QCA chief Ken Boston, speaking to MPs on Monday

After the failure of the private contractor, ETS Europe, to complete the Sats marking process within the deadline of last Tuesday, a new date was set in an attempt to make sure 11-year-olds received their marks before the end of term.

Missing papers

The head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Ken Boston, told a select committee of MPs on Monday: “The current position is that in Key Stage 2 the marking is now 100% complete.”

However a photograph sent to the BBC News website shows six boxes of still unmarked English test papers in a Lancashire primary school, wrongly delivered last month.

It is thought this could contain the unmarked work of pupils in six or seven primary schools.

Despite the head teacher’s efforts to contact ETS, the National Assessment Agency and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and receiving assurances that the test papers would be collected for marking, the papers are still there.

The children have put their heart and soul into this, that’s what hurts

Head teacher Phil Hollman

When the head checked the contents of one of the boxes, the registration numbers showed that some of the papers were from St Martin’s primary school in Runcorn, Cheshire.

The head teacher of St Martin’s, Phil Hollman, only found out that there was a problem when he checked the marks published online and found that his pupils’ English test scores were missing.

Now he has found out that his pupils’ papers have never even been looked at by markers – despite assurances that all would be well with delivering results.

“The children have put their heart and soul into this. That’s what hurts. I’ve had to speak to the children this morning to tell them nothing has come back,” Mr Hollman told the BBC News website.

“It sums the whole thing up. It’s the children who are suffering. We like to speak to each of them individually about their results.

“I’m not interested in league tables or percentages, it’s about how much individual pupils have been able to achieve.”

Without the information provided by the head teacher who still has the boxes, he says his school would have remained completely in the dark about what had happened to all its pupils’ hard work.

In terms of the company which has been running the Sats marking, Mr Hollman says he would like “to treat them with the disdain with which they’ve treated us”.

Responses from other schools getting in touch with the BBC News website show that this is not an isolated incident.

The head of St Augustine’s school in Weymouth says that he also has not received the English results or scripts – and that ETS has informed the school to check again in another 24 hours.

A spokesman for ETS Europe says that the company is investigating the non-collection of the boxes and will be contacting schools which are affected.

The unmarked papers in these boxes will be marked as soon as possible, says the ETS spokesman.

Following the publication of this story, the ETS vice-president Andy Latham has phoned the Lancashire school holding the unmarked papers and has promised that the boxes will be collected today.

A spokesman for the National Assessment Agency said that: “Every year a small number of scripts are mislaid during the marking process and some schools have no levels to report on results day.

“Everything possible is done to trace such mislaid scripts but, clearly, these scripts should have been located much earlier. The papers are now being collected and will be marked and we apologise to the schools concerned for the further delay in receiving their results.”