Primary school spelling paper accidentally posted online months before exam
Test paper had been available online since January 26 despite exam being scheduled for May
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Your support makes all the difference.The Government accidentally published a primary school spelling test online months before half a million seven-year-olds were due take it.
The mistake was discovered after a teacher who had been asked to trial the final paper realised one of her pupils had already seen the questions.
The Department for Education (DfE) said the "serious error" was "deeply regrettable".
Thousands of children will take the Key Stage 1 spelling and grammar tests in May at the end of Year 2, with the results used to measure the progress of pupils.
Teacher Charlotte Smiles was trialling the real paper early and told the BBC that a child told her he knew all the answers and that he seemed to know what was coming next.
She said a colleague asked the young boy 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 had contacted the DfE but that there would not be enough time to rewrite the paper.
A spokesman for the department said the paper had been removed from the website, adding: "Fortunately, this is a Key Stage 1 test which is provided to schools to support teacher assessment judgments."
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