Pupils have results - but not ETS

School test contractor ETS has lost the marks achieved by a primary school's pupils in their maths test.

The test scripts were marked and sent back before the end of term to St Andrew's school in Shifnal, Shropshire. It issued the results to pupils.

But when it looked up their marks on the official website they were missing.

ETS has asked the head teacher if it can have the scripts back so that it can log the marks again.

In a conversation which the head, Adrian Marsh, said "bordered on the bizarre" he was accused of a breach of security because he had taken the scripts home.

Wait

He told the BBC News website he had been in school for most of the two weeks after the end of term and had better things to do with his summer holiday than wait for a courier to collect the scripts.

"I have now been told that I have breached security and that scripts can only be returned from school," he said.

"There has been a complete refusal to collect the papers unless I return to school and wait for collection."

He feels they are more secure at home with himself and his wife - a local authority adviser - than sitting in an empty school.

The situation is ironic given that the bigger complaint from schools is scripts not having been returned - an issue which the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is pursuing with ETS.

Mr Marsh added: "The silly thing is it doesn't really matter because the Sats were there to inform parents and the new secondary schools the children are going to - and that's happened.

"The only thing that's missing is that I haven't got the official upload."

It alarms him that the only backup system seems to have been the scripts themselves.

Both ETS and the QCA have been asked to comment.

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