Silver Birch Trust accused of SATs cheating

Primary schools run by the troubled Silver Birch Academy Trust have been accused of giving children answers to Sats exams.

The Trust, which is due to be disolved this week due to financial difficulties, has been the subject of a BBC Panorama investigation in which Suzanne Barham, the former head of Longshaw Primary School in Chingford, East London, claims she was asked to give 11 year olds the answers to exams.

Mrs Barham says she was ordered to cheat by the trust's chief executive, Patricia Davies, and agreed to do it because she was afraid of losing her job.

Barham told the BBC she was also ordered to change other test scores at three schools in 2017. She said:

"You did what Pat told you to do, otherwise, you knew you wouldn't have a job"

Mrs Davies resigned last October after Silver Birch was taken over by new trustees, who found that the trust was close to insolvency.

A statement from Silver Birch said: "The schools are in the process of being successfully transferred as a group to another trust [United Learning]

"It is expected that the formal transfer will occur on 31 March 2019 and then the Silver Birch Academy Trust will be dissolved."