Following the Leyland Guardian reporting how Moss Side Primary School headteacher Janis Burdin was demanding that her pupils' SATS exams were remarked on Wednesday, the school has featured in a number of natinal newspapers this week.

Mrs Burdin, of Moss Side Primary School, says she knows of at least two other schools who are sending their papers back because of concerns over the way they've been assessed.

She said it was 'the final nail in the coffin' for the controversial tests and has hit out at the 'incredibly bad standard of marking'.

Teachers' leaders are already up-in-arms over the decision to award the £156m marking contract to Educational Testing Service Europe.
Errors includes system crashes, helpline overloads and software problems, followed by delays. Some schools have still not received their results.

Mrs Burdin said: "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.

"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.

"The marking, especially for the writing exams, is absolutely off the radar it is that bad."

Mrs Burdin added: "I will pursue this until they are sent back and remarked. 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."

Up to the mark?
With the permission of Mrs Burdin and the parents of two children, who will remain anonymous, the Guardian has reproduced two excerpts from one of the English writing tests. The first paper was given one mark more.

1. "Pip Davenport lived near to a town. He lived on a street called Slewsbury. He wrote books with his wife Hettie. He loved writing books it was one of his favarout things he did."

2. "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."

• For the full story see this week's Leyland Guardian