Secondary school headteachers in Shropshire are urging the Government to put more trust in teachers and so help restore confidence in the tests system.

They say teachers are best placed to assess how well pupils are performing. There is still anger in county schools over this summer’s Key Stage 3 fiasco, which led to results for 14-year-olds being returned late, with many papers incorrectly marked.

Pupils are now busy with their GCSE courses, yet are only just receiving their Standard Assessment Task (SAT) results for examinations they took in May.

Headteachers are worried about the long-term impact and claim staff, students and parents across Shropshire no longer have faith in the system.

Candy Garbett, headteacher of Shrewsbury’s The Prior School and spokeswoman for the Shropshire Secondary Heads Association, said: “What message does it give young people who have worked hard and spent hours studying to find out their work has been marked incorrectly?

“It makes them feel their efforts are not appreciated and neither is the effort of their teachers. I know my colleagues in other secondary schools feel exactly the same.”

Shropshire headteachers feel that while the news headlines about the SATs debacle only lasted for a short time, the ramifications are far more widespread.

Shropshire has a reputation for being one of the leading educational authorities in the country, but it is feared the cumulative effect of the SATs problems gives the opposite picture.

Ms Garbett said: “We are fortunate enough to have amazing secondary schools within Shropshire, so any indication there are problems with achievement are quite simply wrong.”

She said the association felt the time was right for the Government “to trust teachers to do their job” and give students confidence their work is appreciated and can be assessed by those people who know them best – their teachers.

A recent speech by Education Secretary Ed Balls indicated the Government might be rethinking its testing regime, but Shropshire heads say that for the current students it is too late.