The government has cut down on monitoring data to tackle Sats maladministration owing to “unplanned resourcing constraints”, Ofqual has found.
In its National Assessments Regulation Annual Report 2019, the regulator found that the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) carried out less data monitoring and analysis last year, despite being told that it must improve.
The news comes shortly after Tes revealed that the STA employs just four people to investigate 800 cases of maladministration in schools each year.
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In the “malpractice review” section of the report, Ofqual said: “It is very important that all schools can be confident that tests are administered fairly. So in 2018, we carried out a review of the available documentation relating to STA’s approach to malpractice prevention and detection.
“We provided feedback to STA on areas which had the potential to be strengthened, including in relation to test administration and independent monitoring, teacher assessment, safeguarding of confidential assessment materials and the use of special considerations and access arrangements.
“Since the review, STA has strengthened the requirement in local authority monitoring guidance that conflicts of interest must be managed, and updated test administration guidance to (a) proscribe smartwatches from being worn during testing and (b) strengthen the recommendation that schools arrange for tests to be independently observed.
“STA has also reviewed and strengthened its investigation process by making provision for schools to make written representations in response to investigation findings, prior to a final determination being made.
“However, STA has not made significant improvements in response to other aspects of our review. For example, we provided feedback on the need to improve data monitoring and analysis, however, data monitoring was reduced in 2019 due to unplanned resourcing constraints, although STA plans to reinstate this for 2020.”
Earlier this month, the government was accused of taking a “half-hearted approach” to stamping out cheating on the Sats tests, as a Tes investigation revealed just four people are employed to investigate maladministration in schools.
The NEU teaching union warned that unethical practices are inevitable in a “high-stakes” testing process, while a secondary school head who claimed his school’s Progress 8 score was warped by inflated Sats grades criticised what he deemed to be a “fatally flawed” system.
Meanwhile, the Department for Education refused to explain why it did not intervene at a primary school after an independent investigation uncovered a “culture of inflating” Sats results dating back several years.
Recent figures from the STA show that the number of primary test cheating cases has soared by more than 50 per cent in two years. The agency carried out 793 maladministration investigations across key stage 1 and key stage 2 in 2018, up from 524 in 2016.
The number of schools with amendments or annulments to their KS2 results has also risen sharply - by almost 88 per cent in just two years. In 2018, 122 schools had their KS2 results amended or annulled, up from 78 in 2017 and 65 in 2016.
In its 2019 report, the regulator also found that the STA failed to carry out research into test accessibility “due to lack of sufficient resource”.
Ofqual had told the agency to investigate why the 2016 reading test was not finished by 25 per cent of pupils, but found that ”...regrettably, [the STA] has not yet been able to carry this out due to lack of sufficient resource. We will continue to monitor and report on STA’s progress towards this commitment.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “Teachers and parents must have confidence in the integrity of the assessment system, which is why the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) take allegations of maladministration very seriously.
“The vast majority of STA maladministration cases are very straightforward. During busier periods, as happens across the whole department, additional staff are brought in to cover a heavier workload to assist with the maladministration cases; this is not unusual.”
