Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the recent challenges experienced by schools in accessing key stage 2 SATs results for 2022.

Results for the key stage 2 national curriculum assessments (SATs) were returned to schools last week and the department would like to thank schools for all their hard work to support national curriculum assessments this academic year.

The department is aware that some schools experienced challenges accessing their SATs results the morning that they were released due to technical issues with the Primary Assessment Gateway platform. We recognise that this will have been frustrating for schools and we were in constant contact with our delivery partner, Capita, to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. This meant that schools were able to access their results over the course of the day.

The department is also aware that schools experienced separate challenges when trying to access the national key stage 2 statistics on the same day, to be able to compare their individual results to the national average. We recognise this will have also been frustrating for schools and we worked quickly to make the national statistics available just over an hour later.

The department apologises for the inconvenience and frustration schools have experienced and would like to reassure schools, trusts, and local authorities of the commitment to learning all the necessary lessons from this year to improve the service in future. We will look to engage schools, trusts and local authorities in this work in due course.