150,000 Sats re-marked after fiasco

Record numbers of schools sent papers back, with a high proportion requesting re-marks for English tests.

One teacher's leader said the figures were "appalling" and said they showed that schools had no confidence in the quality of marking last year.

The statistics, published by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, show that 4,628 primary schools asked for 25,142 English papers to be remarked. This is almost six times as many schools as in 2007, when 784 schools requested 1,456 reviews. And 261 primary schools requested a remark for a whole group of pupils.

At secondary school level, 1,001 schools returned English tests for 11,217 pupils, while 684 asked for a group review. In 2007, just 412 schools requested 3,346 individual English papers be reviewed.

Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said: "I think the figures are appalling.

"For every paper that's sent back, that's an increased workload for people who don't believe in the system at all, but are determined that the children will have a fair assessment of their work at the end of each key stage."

A separate report published by the QCA has concluded, based on a small sample of papers marked as part of a quality assurance process, that there is "no particular cause for concern" about the marking of last year's tests.

Last summer the Sats results of more than a million schoolchildren were delayed after a series of administrative failures by the QCA's contractor ETS Europe.

An independent inquiry into the fiasco, led by Lord Sutherland, heaped blame on the QCA and ETS.