Last updated 05:32, Friday, 18 July 2008

So, school’s out then – or as near as makes no difference. Out of Sats results, out of buses for next term, out of luck with summer holiday weather. Out of patience, very likely.

It’s not been the best unwinding ease into the long, playful break from classroom routine – neither for pupils, teachers nor parents.

Anger didn’t ought to be marring gate-happiness. But it is, of course. There’s a mighty fury bubbling up in and around our schools system. It’s rooted rightly and firmly in deep disappointment, growing from justifiable frustration.

Cumbrian schools, hit by a national shambolic Sats marking crisis are fuming. Tenter-hooked pupils and cross teachers are trying to keep temper-tantrums under control but one headteacher is so furious he’s even backing his union’s calls for the Sats tests to be scrapped. And nobody could openly blame him for that.

Some schools have had whole batches of test papers sent back unmarked, others report glaring errors in marking and inaccurate totalling of marks on scripts. The job’s a bad one and no mistake. While some markers can’t work to meet deadlines, others can’t spell or string together a sentence, more can’t add up... doesn’t bode well, does it?

Schools have closed having received no satisfactory results for pupils’ test efforts. And whatever anyone thinks about the wisdom of testing kids repeatedly and with alarming frequency – so that one day they’ll know how to pass a test – it’s a poor show.

Poorer still is how young students who do their best, only to be told that their exams and tests are too easy anyway and count for next to nothing, are being short-changed by a wholly ridiculous system of not so cheap but cheerless outsourcing, which should never have found its way into our education system. Not in a month of Sundays.

Private American firm ETS was awarded a five-year, £156 million contract by the National Assessment Agency to run test services between 2008 and 2012.

The contract for the private firm covers key stages two and three, and year seven progress tests and involves printing and distributing tests, marking papers, collection and delivery of test results.

And it doesn’t work. Patently is doesn’t because schools are in a state of results (or non-results) flux and ETS has had to apologise for fouling up big time.

The firm says delays have been caused by technical issues – ah yes, those old things – and lateness in completing the marking process – which is interesting since a lateness in completing the sitting process would have disqualified the kids. So, the difference is...?

“This is obviously an extremely difficult and disappointing situation. Both staff and students worked hard towards these exams and now the confidence in the system is at rock bottom. A full review is needed as a matter of urgency,” said Lorrayne Hughes, head of William Howard School in Brampton.

And to pile insult onto injury, many of the papers that have been marked have been marked badly enough to have warranted rescue by PG Tips chimps with red pens.

Whitehaven’s Jericho School headteacher, Shaun Monaghan, said: “We do have some issues with discrepancies, particularly with some of the marks in the English writing papers and the marks inputted on the online service. Around a fifth of papers have inaccuracies. We are sending some papers back to be remarked.”

All kinds of bloomers in marked papers have been aired nationally to show up those charged with the job of guiding our children towards a properly educated, well informed future of sensible adulthood as nincompoops... and a bit thick, really.

Teachers and parents have a right to know who marks the markers. But it’s unlikely they’ll find out officially that the honest answer is nobody because Schools Secretary Ed Balls reckons it’s nothing to do with him – even though he takes the credit when exam results are good.

He just makes the policy and pays the bill, he says. Whether the policy works or not is nothing to do with him, so he won’t be apologising – or sacking ETS, presumably.

Meanwhile, kids across Cumbria must be wondering why on earth they felt it was so important to take their tests so seriously, to study so hard, deal with the pressure, pay such detailed attention to spelling, when the people marking their papers turned out to be such dunces. And well might you wonder.

But here’s a little lightening thought you can keep for a touch of brightness during a long, wet summer of waiting for results. You now have a ready-made reply for anyone who dares to suggest your tests and exams are too simple to be worth anything.

Look them in the eye, stand tall and tell the truth: “They have to be... because so are the markers.”