Exam board Pearson has apologised after announcing this year’s Sats results in England would be delayed by more than a week.
Pearson said the delay was caused by “technical issues”, pushing the publication of results from Tuesday 7 July to Thursday 16 July.
The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said “something has gone badly wrong”, and that “schools must be given cast-iron assurances that the results they receive are reliable”.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the delay was “deeply frustrating” for schools, parents and pupils and that the government was working to resolve it.
Pearson said its delivery of GCSE, A-level and other qualification results would be unaffected.
NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman called the Sats delay “completely unacceptable” and said it was “totally unfair” to land it on schools last-minute.
“Schools are held to an extremely high standard when it comes to test administration,” he said.
“Small errors can result in serious consequences for school leaders, and the same should be expected of Pearson and everyone responsible for test and exam results.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the delay was a “complete shambles” which would “inevitably” lead to staff working through their holiday period to finish end-of-year assessments.
“Parents and children now face an increased wait for these results, with all the anxiety this entails, through no fault of their own,” he added.
It is the first time Pearson has delivered the Key Stage 2 tests, which are sat by Year 6 pupils in England, after a change in the contract run by the Standards and Testing Agency (STA).
Whiteman said he had previously been “reassured that everything was on track” after raising concerns with the STA about the change.
“Clearly, though, something has gone badly wrong and Pearson has questions to answer. We would expect serious consequences to follow,” he added.
