Longer wait for school test results

2:48pm Friday 18th July 2008

More than a quarter of 14-year-olds will not be getting their English national curriculum test results before the end of the school term, it was announced.

The results have been published for the first time following the administrative fiasco that delayed publication by more than a week.

But updated figures from ETS Europe, the company responsible for marking show just 71% of marking of English papers is now complete.

In maths and science, 93% and 91% of results will be available.

Teachers were able to access results online from Friday morning.

But an email sent to headteachers by ETS informed them there would be a further delay in publication of some of their results.

It apologised "unreservedly" for "any inconvenience and frustration."

It said schools would be notified when results would be available and that the next time the website would be updated is on Tuesday.

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) warned that the number of appeals was likely to rocket following the marking fiasco.

ASCL general secretary Dr John Dunford said: "The Government and Ofsted use the Sats results to make judgments about whether schools will fail their inspections and heads can lose their jobs as a result. The results need to be accurate and schools will be much angrier at lack of accuracy than delay. Results will be scrutinised this year as never before and the number of appeals is almost certain to rocket."

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