SATS cheating - by the Head!

My child had extra time and at one point was in a room on her own. She still has 2 adults with her. I would’ve been concerned if she hadn’t as it wouldn’t have followed the guidance.

Well that's nothing to do with logistics and totally cheating! That's exactly why schools are not allowed to open the papers early -teachers are not even supposed to look at the papers in advance, never mind have a look then hold some lower attainers back, so they can teach them how to answer the questions on that paper.

It's appalling behaviour. It's cheating.

They won't get any admission of guilt as they'd be losing their career. Not only their current headship but any future jobs in schools. Op needs to either forget the whole thing or officially report it.

But the OP is more likely to get it, even verbally, than any of the other "asks" and I think it's the least the Head should be offering!

Even asking for reassurance is still the head admitting guilt though.

I think your letter is good @Dilemmaramma, although I agree I would take out most of 'casts a shadow' the para, and just leave:

"The experience has been embarrassing and upsetting for my daughter, particularly given that it took place in full view of her peers."

I think it's important for the Head to know that the other kids saw, and are talking about what happened and that the Head's actions are reflecting badly on your daughter as far as the kids are concerned, rather than on the Head themselves.

PP's advice about what you can actually expect to get from the school in response (i.e. unlikely to have something in writing admitting guilt) is probably true, so I would simply ask for reassurance that this won't happen again.

I think it's important to get in touch with the Head, as it was them personally who made the mistake, and you're simply letting them know that you know (particularly since you've been explicit in stating you don't want any repercussions), and hopefully that will make them think twice about doing it again.

You're saying NHS staff never do things wrong? Haha. My consultant once blamed me for not taking a medication that he hadn't even prescribed me and hadn't even spoken to me about. I missed out on taking it for 18 months because he made a mistake which has impacted on my long term health. He wouldn't apologise and continued to deny any fault on his part.

I’m also a headteacher and say that you should report to the STA. I don’t agree with SATs but I administer them to the letter and all heads should because that’s what we signed up for. This head chose to jeopardise their career by cheating, so if they do lose their job, they brought it on themselves.

I’m also coming from the angle that I took over a school where there had been cheating going on in the SATs by the previous leadership. It had been openly discussed on Facebook that the Year 6 children were told to change incorrect answers, but it wasn’t reported. Then when I came in and didn’t cheat, the results in my school plummeted and the finger was pointed at me for a drop in standards (by parents and the local authority) when what I’d done was introduce integrity. I spent years having to rebuild the outcomes and the reputation of the school because it was founded on dishonesty.

Please report to the STA for the sake of us who do follow the rules and for whoever else may lead the school one day and otherwise could be taking on a poison chalice.

Not RTFT, but this happened to my DD. It meant she was put in sets way above her ability in maths when she actually needed extra help. And when she struggled, she was blamed for not putting in the effort, because she was 'clearly able' but wasn't coming close to predicted grades - which were based on SATS scores.

She scraped through GCSEs and has gone down a vocational route since. That moment of SATS cheating wasn't the whole reason obviously, but it really didn't help.

And yes, I did say something at the time to her class teacher but didn't get much of a response and didn't pursue it. Have regretted that since.

But, I say with certainty, I think you are right to raise this - the headteacher is a key pillar of the school community and should be modelling integrity and moral clarity as part of their leadership.

Thank you for this. You are right of course.

It is the principle that is the issue here. Why can’t so many people see that?

It really shocks me how many teachers behave. I work in the NHS and we have such high standards of probity and governance that we are expected to adhere to. There is no way that I could get away with this low level of ethical behaviour. Yet here so many teachers are actively supporting it. Shocking. Whether SATs are important or not is irrelevant. This is cheating.

Writing as a headteacher of a primary school. For clarity, by raising it, you are opening the door on it becoming a significant issue. You should report to the STA or the chair of governors as your complaint is about the headteacher. Don’t send an email to the head.

Ultimately, the results of the cohort and the outcomes for the headteacher are not your responsibility- both lie with the headteacher. If the situation happened as your child has reported, you are not ruining their career, the headteacher has made that decision for themselves. I wouldn’t worry about the implication on secondary school sets or GCSE’s- I don’t think SATs hold that much weight for individuals. Secondary schools generally do their own testing for this metrics. We have children in secondary schools now with no SATs outcomes because of covid and that won’t have impacted on theirs sets or predicted grades.

Obviously, I am pro headteachers and think schools and teachers are on the receiving end of vitriol all the time. But, I say with certainty, I think you are right to raise this - the headteacher is a key pillar of the school community and should be modelling integrity and moral clarity as part of their leadership. Cheating does neither of those things.

The children will not be negatively affected even if their results are voided.

However, if you do not report it, the Head benefits from cheating. Only the Head. The class teachers don't benefit from it, the TAs will not benefit from the Head cheating, the children don't benefit from the Head cheating. The Secondary schools are negatively affected by the Head cheating. The other primaries are negatively affected by the Head cheating. Nobody benefits from a Head cheating other than the Head.

Do not write to the headteacher - that would be considered "tipping off" and gives the head time to intimidate / unduly influence the TA who witnessed the event.

Please report to the Standards and Testing Agency (google for the email address).

It is very serious, and should be treated as such. If the head is throwing caution to the wind about this (where policies are SO clear) you worry what other policies may be ignored.

No. The intention was to cheat by giving that child an unfair advantage over all the hundreds of thousands of others taking that test on Friday. It’s certainly depressing that you don’t see that as a problem but just as the Head "trying to make a difference to a young person". That’s what any adult helping a child to cheat, anywhere, could say.

Primary school headteachers are supposed to be role models, not people who demonstrate to children that cheating is acceptable.

That may be true - I'm not an expert on secondary schools so can’t comment. But both you and @Yorkshiremum80 are ignoring the effect on honest primary schools, which are unfairly judged by how their SATs scores compare to the scores achieved by other schools, including the ones that cheat.

11am ensures everyone is finished, those with extra time ect. It's usually finished before that but it allows for extra time. Year 3 and 4 playgrounds are outside the year 6 it would be way too noisy. They have classes on both sides two on each side which back on to these playgrounds (yr 6 are top floor) . They have to wait until the sats are ended until they play. This is the school I work at. My sons school 2 form are the same he's in year 2 They cant have a break until the year 6 finish. Maybe In non inner city schools if they have fields away from the class it might work.

Couldn't agree more.
Massive overreaction on OP's part.

My takeaway would have been that the Head really cares enough about students and learning to try to make a difference to a young person. The consequences being that the student gets 1 or 2 extra marks, (Big deal !!) by correcting their own answer.
The head bent the rules to give a year 6 pupil a chance to think again, judging that in normal circumstance the child would have answered correctly. The intention was a helpful nudge to a young learner, not to destabilise the education system.

The drafted letter to the school is as dramatic as it is depressing.

The kids in the other years go and play in the infants playground

My daughter was being "coached" all morning until she did her sats. She's very upset about it as she was tired before she even began her tests.

Once the test was over they were all back doing more revision sessions for the next test.

It's grim and I am very cross about it. Even without the cheating by the head (which both my children and some of my friends children have reported) it's a completely over the top approach to these tests

Heads who don’t cheat, and their schools, do lose out because their results are compared to the results of schools where cheating took place.

I’m very conflicted about that - the tests would likely be voided for the whole year group. I want to give the head a chance to amend his conduct - I’m furious, yes, but I am not comfortable with ending someone’s career

For gods sake just drop it then and forget about it

In my experience, those in the second "sitting" usually go to infant classes to "help" while the first lot are taking the tests.

11am is late to finish. The longest paper (Reading comprehension) is 1 hour, so a 10:20 finish would allow plenty of organisational time even for that one. Then there’s time for everyone to have a 15-minute playtime before the next "sitting" starts. (But it seems odd in such a large school for everyone's playtime to have to be postponed. Surely you must have more than one playground, so the noise needn’t be a disturbance. If it’s a question of staffing for playground duty, other class teachers might just have to suck it up for a few days.)

Ours if 4 form entry they all do sats at the same time. What do they do with the other kids in the school if they stagger? The other kids play times are all delayed until the kids finish sats. In our school that is 11am. So do the other kids in the school have to wait in for hours whilst the kids are doing staggered days? I think that sounds ridiculous.