“Be reassured results are accurate” Bridget Phillipson – Schools Week 16th July 2025

My team have spent much of the past two days doing something that I suspect many school leaders across the country are doing right now.

Checking SATs scripts.

Not because our results are poor. In fact, our reading and writing outcomes are above national.

Not because we are looking for excuses.

We are checking them because something didn’t feel right about the recent travesty around marking. The fact that we are receiving the results 10 days later. The fact that the Facebook Marking forums were full of concerns from the markers themselves… It is clear that Markers have been under huge pressure and this system would be rife to mistakes – the fact that this is not being acknowledged and all we have is a, “Nothing to see here – carry on as normal” rhetoric… That always makes me suspicious.

And the more we have looked, the more concerned I have become.

This year our Greater Depth in Reading outcomes took a surprising significant hit. When we dug deeper, we discovered that eight children had achieved a scaled score of 109 – 13.5% of the cohort (so – 17% (our lowest in over a decade) was a few marks from being 30.5%)

Eight children.

One or two marks away from the magical 110.

So, naturally, we reviewed the papers.

Seven of those eight scripts are now being sent back for review.

Not because we disagree with the odd judgement.

Because in every single script we found multiple examples of answers that had either been marked incorrectly or interpreted so harshly that they simply did not reflect the child’s understanding of the text.

Think about that for a moment.

We reviewed eight scripts.

Seven are being challenged.

That should make all of us pause.

One example particularly sticks with me.

In the reading paper, Question 32 asked:

“What did Amelia change about her plans after her accident in Hawaii?”

One child answered:

“She had to make major repairs to the plane.”

A perfectly factual answer.

A perfectly reasonable answer.

An answer that demonstrates understanding of what happened.

The mark scheme, however, specifies reference to delaying the flight.

Can somebody explain to me how you undertake major repairs to an aeroplane without delaying your plans?

The child clearly understood the consequence of the accident.

They understood what happened.

They understood its impact.

Yet the answer is marked as wrong.

At what point does reading comprehension become a game of guessing what the examiner wanted?

And that’s at the heart of my concern.

Reading is nuanced.

Comprehension is nuanced.

Real readers do not all express understanding in exactly the same way.

Strong readers infer, connect, interpret and explain.

Yet increasingly we seem to reward only those children who happen to present their understanding in the exact form anticipated by a mark scheme.

That isn’t assessing reading.

That’s assessing alignment.

We have also found concerns on Question 24, Question 12 and Question 16, with multiple scripts being returned because the marking simply doesn’t appear to reflect what children have genuinely demonstrated.

These are not weak readers.

These are not children struggling to access texts.

These are confident, capable readers who somehow all arrived at the same score: 109.

That feels less and less like coincidence the more scripts we examine.

And then there is another issue entirely. 

Two of our children (who needed a scribe) received a standardised score of 98 and 99 in GPS.

Below the expected standard.

Except when we reviewed the transcribed scripts, we found that two entire pages were missing from their transcripts.

Eight marks.

Eight!

Not misinterpreted.

Not disputed.

Missing from the transcripts!

How can that happen?

How can we ask schools, parents and children to place absolute trust in a system that allows such a fundamental error?

I find that genuinely sickening when we know that the score may have been built upon an incomplete record of the child’s work.

And before anyone says this is simply a disgruntled headteacher reacting to results, let me be clear:

Our results are ok – maybe lower than I’d like in GDS – but not terrible…

Above national in reading and writing and around National in SPAG and Mathematics – just lower in greater depth.

This isn’t about school performance.

It’s about equity.

It’s about confidence in the system.

Because if we have reviewed around eleven scripts and ten of them are going back for challenge, what does that say?

How many other schools don’t have the time?

How many teachers assume the marking must be right because it comes from a national system?

How many children are sitting just below a threshold because nobody had the capacity in the busiest week of the year to investigate?

How many Ofsted from September will this ride on?

The irony is staggering.

At the very point schools are closing the year, writing reports, preparing transition information and planning September, we find ourselves conducting forensic investigations into test papers.

Not because we want to.

Because we feel we have to.

Every child and school deserves a fair reflection of their attainment.

Every child and school deserves accuracy.

Every child and school deserves a system they can trust.

SATs will always be debated.

Assessment will always have imperfections.

But when interpretation outweighs understanding, when semantic technicalities override genuine comprehension, and when administrative mistakes can potentially cost children marks and outcomes, we have to ask difficult questions.

Not about schools.

Not about teachers.

Not about children.

About the system itself.

Because if we truly believe assessment should serve children, then every child must be able to trust that what they know, understand and can do has been recognised fairly.

Right now, despite what I am being told, I am not convinced that has happened.

I’d be interested to hear from other school leaders and Year 6 teams. Are you finding similar issues when reviewing scripts? Are these isolated cases, or is there a wider conversation that needs to be had about the balance between mark scheme interpretation and genuine reading comprehension?