Lucy Powell MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Education, commenting on the news that the answers to today’s Key Stage 2 Spelling and Grammar test have been published online in advance, said: 

“The possibility that Education Ministers have compromised the SATs Key Stage 2 Spelling and Grammar test coming, as it does, hot on the heels of their cancellation of the KS1 Spelling and Grammar test due to incompetence, calls into question the ability of Ministers in the Department to properly manage our education system. This news undermines the validity of the SATs Spelling and Grammar test children are sitting today and is a body blow to parent and teacher confidence in the primary assessment system.

"The failure to ensure integrity in primary assessment lies at the door of Education Ministers who have meddled in the primary curriculum on personal whim, causing chaos and confusion in the system with their constant chopping and changing. Since September, the Department for Education has updated on average at least one primary school assessment resource every other working day. Now their personal involvement in changing the system is coming back to haunt them. Their lax attitude to delivering these assessments on time and in a proper fashion means that the work of thousands of children, parents and teachers could be for nothing. Ministers must undertake an emergency review to assure parents and teachers of the reliability of the primary assessment system.”