Scandal of the SATs: How exam paper littered with grammatical errors scored HIGHER than literate paper

Janis Burdin, head of Moss Side Primary School in Chorley, Lancashire released two examples - by Child A and Child B - which had both been awarded a Level 4.

But Child A received one more mark overall - despite woeful literacy.

The discrepancy follows claims that some SATs were marked by people who only recently finished their A-levels.

Discrepancy: Child A's exam paper (above) scored higher than Child B's (below), despite being littered with grammatical errors

Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said his union had received an 'unprecedented' numbers of calls from members unhappy with the grades they were getting back.

In the Moss Side Primary School discrepancy, Child A wrote: 'If he wasent doing enthing els heel help his uncle Herry at the funfair during the day. And had stoody at nigh.

'Becoues he invented a lot of new rides he won a prize. He didn’t live with his mum he lived with his wife.'

Child B wrote: 'Quickly, it became apparent that Pip was a fantastic rider: a complete natural. But it was his love of horses that led to a tragic accident. An accident that would change his life forever.

'At the age of 7, he was training for a local competition when his horse, Mandy, swerved sideways unexpectedly, throwing Pip on to the ground, paralysed.'

Both 11-year-olds were awarded five marks out of a possible eight for sentence structure. Child A received eight marks out of 12 for composition and effect, while child B received seven.

Headmistress Janis Burdin has labelled the marking of SATs 'absolutely off the radar' and 'pathetic'

Mrs Burdin said: 'These two papers were both given Level 4. I would have given one a 5 and one a 3. These are the most extreme differences but there are many more discrepancies.

'The marking, especially for the writing exams, is absolutely off the radar. The whole thing seems random. I would have expected a third of our pupils to get Level 5 but only one did.

'We've spent hours looking at this wondering what to do. From what I've heard, the training of the markers has been unsatisfactory.

'We got our papers back last week but we are not releasing the writing exam results - the children would be mortified if they saw what they got.

'In 2003 we got re-marks on all the English papers and eight grades were changed. This time it's worse. It's absolutely pathetic. I can't tell you how cross I am.'

Teachers' leaders are already up in arms over the decision to award the £156million marking contract to Educational Testing Service Europe.

Administrative errors have included system crashes, helpline overloads and software problems, followed by delays.

Some schools have still not received their results.

Mrs Burdin added, 'It has been an absolute fiasco from day one. The new system is all online yet it went down straight away after the first exam on May 12 and when every school in the country rang the helpline - that crashed too.'

She added: 'I will pursue this until they are sent back and re-marked. The children and staff work really hard and we rise and fall by our SATs - it is the first thing that an Ofsted inspection looks at.'

Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualification and Curriculum Authority, said: 'The papers have been marked largely by the same people who marked test papers last year and in previous years - teachers and other experienced local markers who know and understand curriculum, schools and standards in England.

'Markers were trained by senior examiners. Markers who had drifted from the standard were given further training or had their work terminated, and their papers were re-marked. This was a more rigorous process than last year.'