SATS cheating - by the Head!

[Dilemmaramma]

In my DC’s final SATS exam yesterday, the headteacher was overseeing and they picked up DC’s paper, DURING the exam, flicked through it, then rubbed out one of the answers and told DC to try again. They also pointed out another wrong answer and indicated DC should re-do that question.

This is clear cut cheating, right?

YABU - don’t report it, the whole year group could get their SATS voided and they’ll be devastated
YANBU - this is appalling and the Head needs to be investigated

I maintain that this is a thoroughly unnecessary logistical nightmare!

The head chose the jeopardise her career. This is on her. Noone else.

Why should other, more honest, heads, lose out in comparison ?

Oh I quite agree. But I strongly suspect the goal is to do some targeted coaching of the weaker students once the head knows what is in the paper

Honestly OP the idea of ruining someone’s career over something your child said is mad. In reality where is the proof? It’s your child’s word against the head’s. There’ll be no evidence. Instead, you’ll drag the head through an investigation - potentially resulting in them being off long-term with stress, resulting in no leadership for the duration, and your child will have to be involved as well (presumably as a witness in some capacity). It’s a pyrrhic victory at best and a chaotic shitshow at worst. Honestly just chill out. Find something else to occupy your time. Sometimes in life, what’s morally ‘right’ isn’t the best course of action

No-one is losing out at all. SATs are a nonsense.

If you want to send it to the Governors, send it to the Chair (you can usually do this via the school office if you don’t know their email address). However, I disagree with the poster who said to keep it very brief. The more details the Chair has, the more it will help him/her decide what to do.

Sending it to the Chair ramps up the seriousness. What he/she will do is up to them. Depending on their integrity and their relationship with the Head, they might just ignore it, though they would probably feel obliged to discuss it with the Head, who might of course assure them that it’s all nonsense. Whether they took it further and reported it would again be up to them.

You could of course address your email to the Head but copy in the CoG; that way you’d be more likely to get a response, but if you don’t want it reported to the STA you’d be running that risk.

Having been a HT I'm now a Chair of Governors and would hate to have to make a decision like that! Personally, tbh I would probably decide not to take it further, in the knowledge that the Head had received a big shock even if they didn’t admit it, though I acknowledge that this might not be the most moral thing to do.

You are right that SATS are a nonsense, but you are wrong that no one loses out as a result of cheating. Schools and Teachers who adhere to the rules and act with integrity absolutely do lose out when their results are measured against those who have broken the rules and gotten away with it.

Jesus, I'm naive- that hadn't even occurred to me!

I’ve not dealt with this exact scenario but based on other investigations:

• follow the complaints process. Since this involves the HT it’s appropriate to go straight to the Chair of Governors (which may be via an email to the clerk)
• they will formally investigated, probably via a sub committee of governors. This will likely also include liaison with HR and other external advisors
• the outcome will determine next steps. yes that might include disciplinary action and reporting given its a conduct issue

I know school governors get yawned at on MN. I support a school I have no affiliation with and apart from 2 parent governors (who aren’t on any committees) we are all independent professionals and far from in the pocket of the head. This would be jumped on at my school. Rightly so.

To all the ‘what other good things have they done’. That’s precisely why they didn’t need to do it.

If there's no other evidence it's not likely to ruin the heads career.

However, it may mean there is more monitoring in SATS

And if multiple people report then it would rightly ruin the heads career. But that won't be the fault of the op it will be the fault of the head (and the decision of the chair of governors)

Completely agree.

Dd2 did much worse in maths than she should have but it just meant she ended up in a lower set, but then got moved up and they are vaguely talking about moving her again for next year.

The predicted grades thing is just for the progress 8 measure. Dd2 would be amazing for the school’s figures if she scraped 100 then ended up with a 7 for example at GCSE. So it’s totally in secondaries’ best interests to get the most out of every child regardless of their SATs scores.

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.

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.)

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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