Ed Balls – the man in charge of the nation's schools – says marking mistakes are "rare" despite the exam chaos sweeping Lancashire.
The schools secretary claimed an appalling marking error in SAT test papers – uncovered by a Lancashire headteacher – was an "isolated" incident.
This is despite the fact that 120 schools have contacted Lancashire union officials to complain about poorly and wrongly marked exam papers in recent days.
Mr Balls said officials had reassured him that mistakes remained "rare" and that "there had not been a decline in marking quality".
He was worried that confidence was being undermined by "media coverage and stories in the newspapers saying one test has been marked well or badly".
He made his comments after Janis Burdin, the headteacher of Moss Side Primary School in Leyland, described the marking of Key Stage 2 tests as "absolutely off the radar".
Commenting on the furore, Mr Balls said: "We have ten million scripts, over a million young people doing these exams – every year there are some examples where things don't go right and that is why you have an appeals procedure.
"But because there is more focus this year because of the delays, probably people are hearing more about some of these, what I hope are, isolated incidents."
But Mrs Burdin, the headteacher of Moss Side Primary School, wants her pupils' SAT exams remarked after revealing one of her pupils scored higher on an English passage littered with spelling mistakes than one with excellent grammar.
She said of Mr Balls' comments: "If he said that, he needs to get out and speak to my colleagues in schools. He clearly has no idea what is going on."
Tony Roberts, the county's spokesman for the National Association of Headteachers, said he had received 120 e-mails from Lancashire schools complaining about problems with the SATs.
Mr Roberts said of Mr Ball's comments: "I'm absolutely astonished – I'm almost speechless.
"How can anybody say the situation is under control?"
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