Parents told off by Department for Education after tweeting answers to SATs exams

The Department of Education has warned parents not to share the answers to exam questions.
Dave Thompson/PA Wire

Parents have been reprimanded online by the Department for Education for tweeting answers from their children's SATs exams.

Millions of primary school pupils are in the process of taking national curriculum tests, known as SATs, prompting officials to flood social media in a bid to clamp down on cheating.

The DfE's official Twitter account warned against publishing answers as some key stage two students are still due to sit assessments.

It wrote: "Some children will be taking the KS2 tests next week using timetable variations. Please help us to keep the test content secure. Thank you."

The plea followed a series of interventions against disgruntled parents who had aired concerns about questions in their children's' tests.

Journalist Matt Thrower used Twitter to query whether a part of his daughter's maths paper was relevant to the subject, only to receive an official rebuttal.

The DfE told him: "Hi, can you please remove the tweet referring to SATs? We're trying to maintain the confidentiality & integrity of ongoing tests."

But the father hit back: "Happy to, once you remove such absurd and pointless questions from your tests."

Another user complained that a word which had many spellings was too ambiguous to have formed part of his daughter's spelling test.

When asked by the official account to remove details of the question, he responded with a firm "no".

He said: "I think SATs are cruel and unnecessary and cause stress for children.

"Esp when you get situations like that yesterday. Totally unfair."

Reporting by Press Association.

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