Headteachers’ unions are “deeply concerned” over emerging school leader reports that key stage 2 Sats papers have gone missing.
School leaders have raised concerns over “missing papers” since results were published yesterday.
Some have said that papers have also been assigned to the wrong pupils.
James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT, has said the union is “deeply concerned about the reports we’re hearing”.
He said the union had contacted the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) to find out more about “how widespread a problem” this was.
Mr Bowen said there are usually some issues with Sats papers, “but it would appear from reports that something very different is going on this year”.
He said the reports of missing papers were “another concern with how the infrastructure has been run this year” around Sats.
“It does raise some pretty serious questions about the administration of Sats this year, which seems to have been beset with problems,” he added.
Yesterday’s KS2 Sats results revealed a “disappointing” fall in attainment compared with pre-pandemic levels, with the biggest drop being seen in writing.
The NAHT branded the results publication process “disgraceful and shambolic” after schools were delayed in accessing results when the primary assessment gateway system, outsourced by the Department for Education to Capita, crashed.
Today, one headteacher said on Twitter that her school had received no maths results.
And one head of department said her school had 42 papers missing.
Mr Bowen said the reports raised “all sorts of questions” and were “worrying” for school leaders.
Having gone through the assessments, Mr Bowen said it was “deeply unfair to the school” and to the pupils for those results to now be missing.
One deputy head, from Cheshire, told Tes that a range of their reading and maths papers were missing when they finally got on to the portal after a wait of more than an hour.
They said that all the papers missing at their school were specially adapted papers for dyslexic pupils.
The headteacher said that some pupils with dyslexia have different coloured paper, as it is less stressful for their eyes, but that those papers were sent off at the same time as those of their peers.
The head said that a person involved in the marking had contacted them this morning and said the papers with access arrangements had been “marked separately” and the results should arrive soon.
Another headteacher said on Twitter that more than half of his classes’ papers were missing.
Teachers have also taken to Twitter to report results being matched to the wrong pupils or pupils being given scores for tests they did not take.
And teachers are also concerned about what this will mean when they come to writing pupil reports for parents.
In an email shared with Tes, the STA said Capita would be in contact with schools “by Friday 8 July to confirm when results will be made available” for those pupils with questions awaiting final marking.
The STA also said that schools “must still provide a report to parents about their child’s attainment, including any test results you do have, teacher assessments and any other information you have about their performance”.
“You should inform parents that overall national curriculum test results are unavailable for the affected tests.”
Capita apologises to all schools affected by missing scripts
A spokesperson for Capita said the firm “appreciate that this is frustrating to the schools affected and we apologise to them”.
The spokesperson said the “vast majority, substantially over 99 per cent” of scripts were “processed without any issues”, but that a “small number were unfortunately not included in the results returned on Tuesday 5 July”.
They said the missing scripts “represent a very small number of scripts overall” and “have no effect on national statistics”.
They said the scripts could be missing for a “range of reasons, including that the scripts arrived too late to mark, or where there had been scanning issues, or where the pupil may not in fact have sat the test, but we have not yet secured confirmation of this from the school, or they may be lost”.
“We appreciate that this is frustrating to the schools affected and we apologise to them.”
