The tests have been made harder this year with the introduction of tougher materials and a new spelling, punctuation and grammar test.  The way that these changes have been made by the DfE has been very disruptive and the children have not had the normal amount of time to study for them.

This may mean that, despite their hard work and talent, some children have not reached the standards in the key stage tests.

This is due to the outcome of changed to the national curriculum and the resetting of the expected standard and not to be seen as a judgement against the school or the achievement of our pupils.

Comments from Nicky Morgan (Former Secretary of State for Education)

Nicky Morgan warned that changes to the tests meant they were no longer “directly comparable” to scores from previous cohorts and rejected that any lower results would be “evidence of a failure of the system”.

She also stated that the government had raised the bar to a more “rigorous system” and said that she “knew” it was “asking more”, adding: “This is the first year we have assessed pupils under the new more rigorous system and it is no surprise that this year’s results look different to previous years