the primary head's blog

SATS is for dummies, administering SATS however…well that’s a task that would tax the finest minds of MI6. Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to correctly use every single plastic bag, fold-out cardboard box, elastic band, sticky address label and registration sheet in your pack before Karla the postman comes to pick them up.

Opening the pack (not the paper-watch it Tinker) you are presented with your diagrammatical instructions. Not at first you understand, no first you have to hold the blank piece of paper under a candle and wait for the lemon juice to colour. Then, you have your instructions.

It’s simple really.

Exactly 7 ½ minutes before starting the test you and another administrator recover your skeleton keys that are hanging on a chain around your neck, insert said keys in the duplicate holes of your undercover SATS bunker and on the count of three turn your keys anti-clockwise until you hear a click. You now have access to the vault. Take out the sealed papers and like ninjas creep up to the testing room.

Upon entering make sure you mentally record the precise seating location of every child within the room – if any of them even think of moving chairs you have permission from the secretary of state to terminate their education with extreme prejudice. Then whip out your serrated jungle blade and open up that bag of papers like a cheap suit in summer. Distribute the papers in silence recording the time each paper hit the table.

Once the papers have been handed out give the children the fifteen digit code that they must copy down in mirrored handwriting before starting the clock. As you were the person who delivered, opened and distributed the papers it is obviously inappropriate for you to continue breathing the same air as the examinees so remove yourself, recording the precise time you left the room.

Using your watch, or through very precise counting, return to the exam room, again mentally recording the location of each child, and demand they put down their pencils through the medium of mime because remember, the walls have ears. Collect each paper in alphabetical order and before the top and bottom papers reach the same temperature as your palms lay them on the table in your office.

Now here comes the tricky bit. Cross reference each paper with the registration sheet provided by your government contact. Tick off each name using the code poor boy, beggar boy, naughty boy and free school meal boy. Once all the papers are accounted for, retrieve from the vault, your clear plastic bag. Insert papers in the bag and seal – unless there is a second part to the test in which case use the other clear plastic bag and seal that one instead. If using the first clear plastic bag peel off and stick on the coded label with the address of the government agent who will mark bits and pieces of your test papers. If using the second type of clear plastic do not peel off and stick on the sticker. Instead, just seal the bag and wait until more papers to arrive and then unseal the bag and put those papers and the new papers into a newer and even clearer plastic bag and seal that one and then attach the coded address label. Don’t forget that at any time you can make the flat pack cardboard box and put all the papers in any of the clear bags in the box but don’t close the box until all the papers are in all the correct clear plastic bags. Then seal the box and put this sealed box containing sealed and coded labelled bags full of papers into another plastic bag which you should then seal but not before making a note of the precise time that you sealed the bagged and boxed and bagged again papers into their final bag (or box). There may be more coded address labels to use at this point or you may find that they have all been used up. At this stage find your red telephone and ring the emergency number at control, use the phrase ‘The Gove has laid a dirty egg’ and you will be sent an encrypted email containing new sticky labels and your letter of resignation. (Be warned that control will be experiencing a high volume of calls at this time and you may experience long delays, your call is important to them).

Finally place all bags and boxes into the vault and double lock the door. You must then check the vault on an hourly basis to make sure that no tinkering or spying has been going on. The whole SATS operation will be over when you open the vault and the papers have just disappeared. At this point send a telegram to control saying:

‘SATS COMPLETE AND SENT AWAY FOR MARKING stop ALL PAPERS ACCOUNTED FOR stop RIDICULOUSLY CONVOLUTED AND COMPLICATED SYSTEM OF ADMINISTRATION COMPLETE stop PLEASE CAN WE stop’