Spelling test for seven-year-olds leaked online by mistake

A spelling test due to be taken by thousands of seven year olds in England next month has been published online by mistake.

A teacher at a school trialling the final paper realised the error after discovering that a pupil had already seen the material.

It is believed the test was published online as a sample paper.

The test is used to measure the progress of pupils, but not to rank schools. Sample papers are provided by the Government online to help children and teachers practice.

The Department for Education has launched an urgent investigation to find out how the “serious error” happened but it is unclear whether the test will be re-written.

A spokeswoman for the department said: “We ask that if anyone has seen the material, they do not share it further so that the test remains helpful for those teachers who have not yet used it with their pupils.”

Around 500,000 children will take the Key Stage one spelling and grammar tests in May at the end of year two.

The results are used to help teachers assess pupils’ performance.

The DfE website says the tests are also intended to be used to hold schools accountable for the attainment and progress made by their pupils, to inform parents and schools about the performance of individual pupils, and to enable benchmarking between schools.

Teacher Charlotte Smiles was trialling the real paper early. She told the BBC that a child said he knew all the answers and appeared to know what was coming next.

Another teacher asked him if he had seen the test before and he answered coyly.

She said: “Because of the way this child was behaving, I went and checked on the DfE website and I found this exact test published as a sample paper.

“It’s actually been there since January 26.”

Ms Smiles said she contacted the DfE but there would not be enough time to rewrite the paper.

The DfE spokeswoman said the paper had been removed from the website and added: “This is clearly a serious error and we have launched an immediate investigation to understand how it happened.

"The material has been removed from our website. Fortunately, this is a Key Stage 1 test which is provided to schools to support Teacher Assessment judgements.

"The data used to judge the performance of schools and the progress children are making at Key Stage 1 are teacher assessment judgements. The results of these tests are not collected. Nonetheless it is deeply regrettable that it has happened.”

Russell Hobby, leader of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “This is a serious error that has compromised the integrity of the spelling, punctuation and grammar tests for Key Stage 1 children this year.

“As things stand, these tests can have little value because there is no way to know how many children will have already used this test for practice.”