Missing Sats grades could affect thousands, says union

Thousands of children in England could be without full sixth grade sats results after some papers were lost and others mismarked, a BBC teachers’ union has said.

A number of flagged papers have yet to be returned days after the results were released.

The government says missing papers are being investigated and the results have been processed for 99% of students.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) is calling for clarity on how many are affected.

It said: “It looks like there could be thousands based on what we’re seeing, but that’s exactly what the government needs to be aware of.”

Along with the disappearance of papers, the NAHT said some were marked but attributed to the wrong child.

The BBC understands others are at Capita, the government’s partner responsible for handling papers, but are yet to be sent back to schools.

Des Ricketts, headmaster at Bishop Wilson Church of England Primary School in Birmingham, told the BBC that 14 out of 59 of his sixth-formers had no results.

Mistakes were also made in labeling the processed tests, he said.

“It’s deeply unfair to all these kids who have worked so hard and deserve to know how well they did. This will also affect their progress in secondary schools,” he said.

Mr Ricketts added that children with dyslexia and others who needed special accommodations, such as writing on colored paper, were disproportionately affected.

NAHT said it had heard other reports of those papers not being scanned correctly.

Sats results released last week showed general standards in reading, writing and arithmetic have declined since the pandemic – but not all scripts have been included.

An Education Department spokeswoman said 3.8 million test scripts had been processed “alongside scores for over 99% of students”.

“We are aware that a number of scripts were not included when the results were released last week. We have written to all affected schools in advance,” she said.

“We are aware that this will be frustrating for these schools. Our delivery partner, Capita, is investigating all instances of missing results and is working to reduce the number as much as possible while keeping schools updated.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, said the situation was “deeply concerning”.

“If the government is unable to see the magnitude of the problem, how can leaders have confidence that they can solve it?” he asked.

“All school staff play their part, take it seriously and do exactly what is expected – and the penalties for failure are severe. We should be able to expect the same standards from the government.”