PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Teachers are under pressure to change pupils' marks to prove youngsters are making progress in class, research suggests.
Results are being manipulated to make schools look better and to meet targets, studies show.
Three separate small-scale papers, due to be presented at the British Educational Research Association's (BERA) annual conference in London this week, reveal teachers are altering judgments following pressure from senior school staff, or local councils.
Teachers usually provide information regularly on which level of the national curriculum a child has reached as they progress through "key stages" at school. This information is given to parents and used by the school and local authority to see if pupils are making progress.
One study, by Professor Martin Fautley at Birmingham City University, looked at the marks given to 11 to 14-year-olds in music lessons. The study, which surveyed 57 music teachers, found that more than a third (35.1%) said they had to show that their pupils had made enough progress in class.
One teacher told researchers: "I thought I was free to use my professional discretion, but at the end of the key stage was told to change the levels to meet the percentage target."
The report concludes that these national curriculum level judgments are "not fit for purpose", with data "subject to manipulation by senior leadership in schools".
The second study, by Alice Bradbury at the Institute of Education looked at the experiences of reception class teachers at two primary schools. The findings show that the teachers felt pressurised to change results to meet the progress expected of their inner-city schools.
One of the teachers said he was told, or felt obliged to lower children's marks so that the overall scores were not too close to the government's national benchmark. This was because the pupils' scores were "too high" or "unintelligible" for an inner city school, the report said.
The third study looked at science departments in two secondary schools after science Sats tests for 14-year-olds were scrapped in 2008. It found evidence of staff at both schools making up results, after being told to report at the end of the year how well their pupils had done in the subject.