Pilot test rogue results revealed

The government has explained some of the "unusual" results from the first pilot of new tests that might replace the Sats in England's schools, reported The BBC.

Schools Minister Jim Knight told MPs that in a reading test, younger children did better than older ones.

He said other oddities might have been because teachers had entered children for the tests when they were not ready.

Mr Knight said if single level testing is not a positive evolution from the current system, "We won't do it".

The pilot tests were taken by 22,543 children around England.

The delivery of the results to their schools was delayed while officials looked into "unusual patterns" in them.

Mr Knight was quizzed about this when he gave evidence to the Commons children, schools and families committee's ongoing inquiry into assessment, and has sent the MPs a letter about the issue.

He said an evaluation of the December pilot and the next one, in June, would be published in the autumn.

Teething troubles were inevitable and he did not want results to come out in a "drip, drip" fashion.

But he said the most significant unusual outcome had been variations between Key Stage 2 and 3 children - several years apart in age - taking the same test.

"So let's say they were taking a Level 4 writing test, the Key Stage 2 students doing significantly better - taking exactly the same test - as the Key Stage 3 student.

"Now that - that was just a bit odd," he said.

Mr Knight flatly denied that there had been a high rate of failure.

And he said the decision to make them more like existing Sats for the next round of pilots in June had been reached before the first ones had been taken, and was not a response to the results.