

The Department for Education has said it is going ahead with Tuesday’s test of grammar and spelling for primary school pupils, despite the publication of the answers on the internet a day early.

The decision followed a night of uncertainty after the Guardian reported that the paper had been mistakenly published online before it was due to be given to hundreds of thousands of primary school children across England.

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The schools minister, Nick Gibb, will make a statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday morning after the Speaker granted Labour’s call to discuss the mishap.

A DfE spokesperson said the key stage 2 test of spelling, punctuation and grammar (Spag), which is compulsory for pupils in the final year of state primary school in England, would take place as planned but said its investigation would continue.

The test results could be annulled if the DfE inquiry reveals the answers had been widely circulated.

The mishap – revealed by a whistleblower to the Guardian – occurred when Pearson, which is administering the test, posted the papers a day early on a site for test markers. Dozens of markers – mainly primary school teachers – are thought to have accessed the material, meaning that the answers could have been recorded and then passed around.

The DfE confirmed that the test paper and answers had been uploaded to the site. The site was taken offline on Monday evening.



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A DfE source blamed a “rogue marker” for accessing the test on the secure website. “While the test doesn’t appear to have leaked into the public domain and can go ahead, a rogue marker did attempt to leak the test contents,” the source said. “It is clear there is now an active campaign by those people opposed to our reforms to undermine these tests and our attempts to raise standards.”

An official DfE spokesperson said: “We are aware that Pearson, the external marking supplier responsible for key stage 2 tests, published the key stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling test on its secure marker site, for a short period of time. We are urgently investigating this breach.

“The site can only be accessed by Pearson’s approved markers, all of whom are under secure contract. Any distribution of materials constitutes a clear breach of that contract.”

The spokesman said the latest leak differed from the leak discovered last month that led to the key stage 1 spelling and grammar test for year two primary pupils being cancelled.

“Unlike the key stage 1 test, we have no evidence to suggest this was leaked into the public domain by the time schools began to administer it. The integrity of the test has not been compromised and schools should and must deliver it as planned,” the DfE said.



Labour accused the DfE of compromising the test, which was already a subject of national protests last week by parents concerned that primary-age pupils were being placed under too much pressure. Authors including Philip Pullman claimed the tests were too demanding.

It is the second time in three weeks that the department has been embarrassed in its attempts to impose tougher Spag tests on primary school pupils.

Last month, the scheduled Spag test for six- and seven-year-olds at key stage 1 had to be scrapped after the DfE’s testing agency mistakenly included the actual test paper within a bundle of practice material published three months earlier.

Lucy Powell, Labour’s education spokeswoman, called for an emergency review of the assessment programme, and said the leaked tests “call into question the ability of ministers in the department to properly manage our education system”, as well as undermining parent and teacher confidence.

“The failure to ensure integrity in primary assessment lies at the door of education ministers who have meddled in the primary curriculum on personal whim, causing chaos and confusion in the system with their constant chopping and changing,” Powell said.

The DfE’s decision to press on with the tests despite the breach brought a withering response from the major teaching unions. Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the latest leak was a “disaster” for teachers and pupils.

“After months of confusion and mismanagement, they mark the dismal culmination of a dreadful year for primary pupils and their teachers. They constitute an experience which must never be repeated; those who have engineered it must be held to account,” Blower said.

Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the blunder called into question the DfE’s ability to administer important examinations.

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“We cannot see how school level results can be published or a national benchmark set on such shaky data,” he said. “The government may be tempted to pass this off as human error. It is not. Massive, rushed and chaotic reforms have eroded confidence, consent and capacity. It is time to stop.”

Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said the tests should not be used to judge school performance, and called for an urgent review by the government into the mishandling.

“Given the high-stakes nature of the testing for teachers and school leaders, if the integrity of the tests cannot be guaranteed then it is absolutely clear that they cannot be used to judge the performance of schools,” he said.