Headteachers are demanding that the government pull a controversial test that is due to be sat by half a million children in two weeks’ time after it was accidentally published online.
The NAHT school leaders’ union has written to schools minister Nick Gibb, urging him to allow primary schools to scrap this year’s tests, and condemning the blunder as a serious error that undermines confidence in primary testing.
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT, said: “This is a serious error that has compromised the integrity of the spelling, punctuation and grammar (Spag) tests for key stage 1 [KS1] children this year.
“As things stand, these tests can have little value because there’s no way to know how many children will have already used the test for practice.”
An unknown number of schools, teachers and parents have downloaded the test, which was posted on the Department for Education website as a sample of the new spelling test that seven-year-olds will sit in the first week of May.
The mistake emerged when a teacher at a school that was trialling the live paper realised one pupil had already seen the material. The paper had been publicly available since January when it was posted on the Standards and Testing Agency part of the DfE website. It has now been removed.
The new so-called Spag tests for seven- and 11-year-olds have been widely condemned by the profession as inappropriate, with complaints from both professionals and parents that the tests are too difficult and confusing.
In his letter to government, Hobby said: “This most recent mistake follows a series of delays, miscommunications and reversals across the whole testing regime, which have created confusion, anger and indeed despair among professionals trying to stay focused on the needs of children.
“The government’s testing reforms have over-reached and under-delivered, to the detriment of pupils. I would ask you to please reconsider the current approach and work with us to develop a stable, coherent approach to assessment.”
Hobby said schools could now have little faith in any standard-setting exercise that may emerge from the pre-test trials. “I therefore ask that you free schools from the obligation to use this test. My members will certainly expect this step.”
KS1 tests are taken by six- and seven-year-olds in England at the end of year 2 to measure pupil progress. They take two papers in spelling, punctuation and grammar, two English reading papers and two maths papers. A second set of tests at KS2 are taken by 10- and 11-year-olds at the end of year 6, which are used as a measure of school performance.
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, described the blunder as farcical.
“Teachers have lost confidence in the department’s ability to oversee and run these assessments to an acceptable standard. How many more mistakes will the DfE make before they realise these assessments are not yet fit for purpose and their implementation is chaotic?
“Why should our children be put through these slapdash tests? It is time for the DfE to scrap these reforms and work with the profession to design an assessment system that we all can have confidence and pride in.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “This is clearly a serious error and we have launched an immediate investigation to understand how it happened. The material has been removed from our website.
“Fortunately, this is a KS1 test which is provided to schools to support teacher assessment judgements. The results of these tests are not collected. Nonetheless it is deeply regrettable that it has happened.
“We ask that if anyone has seen the material, they do not share it further so that the test remains helpful for those teachers who have not yet used it with their pupils.”
