MORE than 100 high school students have had their exam results upgraded after teachers demanded they be remarked.

Pupils at Woodhey High School in Ramsbottom can finally celebrate after the external Assessment and Qualifications Alliance Examination Board reassessed their Year Nine English papers.

Out of 197 papers, 107 were found to be incorrectly marked and were given higher grades.

Speaking in the week that the Government launched a major investigation into allegations of A-level grade "fixing", Woodhey head teacher Mr Martin Braidley told of his concerns that other schools could have been affected by the blunder.

Mr Braidley and his staff demanded that Key Stage 3 Standard Attainment Tests (SATs) in English taken by Year Nine in May be sent back and checked.

He said: "The results we initially got back were not what we were expecting; they were a lot lower than we had predicted.

"We sent back the whole batch and 107 papers out of 197 were amended and upgraded, some by as much as two levels.

"We knew something was amiss when the children performed well in the maths and science papers but did significantly less well in English.

"For a whole year group to do badly in one paper suggested to us that something was wrong.

"The remarked papers were in line with our predictions."

The mistake could have affected Woodhey's perfomance in the annual "league tables" in which they are always one of Bury's top performing schools.

Mr Braidley added: "Some parents do use these test results as an important indicator of which school to send their children. The results are also used as a yardstick by teachers to assess pupils' on-going performance in these key subjects."

The school refused to release the initial results to pupils until they had been re-assessed by the examining board.

In a letter, the examining board apologised for the "unsatisfactory" marking of the papers and admitted that they were marked more strictly than the guidelines given to markers.

In line with procedure, the examining board selected a number of exam scripts before ordering all the papers to be remarked.

The examination board said that the borderline checks had not been carried out "satisfactorily", and that "the marking record of the marker concerned will be taken in to account when recruitment commences for the year 2003.".

But Mr Braidley said: "It is very worrying that this mistake was made in the first place. It makes you wonder how many other schools have been affected. This needs to be addressed."