10th April 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Evidence has emerged of an academy in England helping students to cheat in their SATs test, taken when they are aged 11. Reported on the BBC, the academy in question is the Silver Birch Academy Trust, and a former head teacher, Suzanne Barham explained that she was ordered to give answers to students and also to change test scores to improve the school’s performance.
The trust is actually scheduled to officially close due to financial reasons and the schools will be transferred to another trust. This is due to happen by March 31st and then Silver Birch will be dissolved. They say that they shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of a former employee.
Patricia Davies is the ex-chief executive of the trust and Mrs Barham said that she was afraid of losing her job if she didn’t do what Ms Davies said. In a reading paper Mrs Barham was asked to “read the paper for them [the students]”, and was also asked to give them answers. She said that she knew it was wrong and wouldn’t help the children but the alternative was to lose her job.
Parents corroborated the findings, and said that at the school gates they heard students laughing about how the teachers allowed them to cheat. One student said that a teacher walked past her desk and pointed to an answer, only for the student to say “what are you doing, this is a test”.
Mrs Barham said that once the SATs tests had been marked, the trust gave her a piece of paper with the real results on it crossed out, and the results they wanted her to submit written next to the crossed out numbers. This happened over three years to inflate how well Siver Birch was performing.