Hundreds of thousands of 14-year-olds in England will continue to be tested next month even though the government no longer requires them to be.

Most secondary schools have ordered them even though the Key Stage 3 national curriculum tests, or ‘SATS’, were scrapped following last year’s marking disaster.

This year a total of 3,283 schools are preparing to have pupils sit the tests compared to 4,186 last year, when they were required to. The main objection to the Key Stage 3 tests was not the assessment itself but the publication of results by which schools could be ranked.