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Primary schools are experiencing difficulties with the new online system for submitting attendance registers at the end of key stage 2 Sats, ����Vlog has learned.

On the opening day of the tests, schools have reported problems accessing the , with heads telling ����Vlog this was a “highly predictable” problem for the Department for Education.

The NCA portal is being used by the DfE and for Sats administration for the first time in 2025-26, marking the first year that paper registers have been fully replaced.

‘Technical issue’

Numerous heads have told ����Vlog that they were unable to access the portal when they logged on, as the site was “experiencing a technical issue”.

Michael Tidd, headteacher at East Preston Junior School in West Sussex, told ����Vlog that the longer-term impact of the problem was “hard to know”, but warned it was already “disrupting people’s abilities to mark attendance for pupils”.

Mr Tidd said the difficulties increase the likelihood of mistakes in registering absentees or those in attendance, and that they will delay the packaging and dispatching of scripts for marking.

He suspects that schools may find a way to “work around” the issue, but said it “certainly isn’t helpful”.

“My query at the moment is how this has happened,” he said. “I hope it’s not just a case of the website not coping with the volume of users, because that really is highly predictable.”

Mr Tidd said his school managed to complete a first batch “before it all seemed to crash”, so the impact was minimised, but “another school mentioned taking around an hour to complete the process”.

‘Multiple attempts’ at access

Another headteacher, who asked to remain anonymous, told ����Vlog they did eventually gain access to the portal after “multiple attempts”, but that it took two hours.

The headteacher said the portal was registering children as not attending despite them being present, and that other heads were experiencing similar problems.

After calling the NCA helpline, the head was advised to try the portal later.

“The trouble is the guidance says you have to complete the register, then seal the test script bags - and you’re meant to get them sealed ASAP,” the head told ����Vlog.

“It’s the first year of online registers. We have the same issues every results day: they build websites that can’t handle the volume of traffic.”

Shazia Azhar, headteacher at Spring Grove Junior, Infant and Nursery School in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, told ����Vlog there had been a “mad rush” today, as thousands of primary schools tried to register their pupils.

Ms Azhar said there was “no forward thinking” from the DfE, and that it is a “frequent occurrence” during predictable and stressful times of the school year.

She added: “A little common sense would remedy this.”

‘Significant concerns’

Sarah Hannafin, head of policy (practice and research) at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said it had previously raised “significant concerns” about changing the system to register attendees, and questioned the need to remove paper registers.

Ms Hannafin told ����Vlog: “The issues experienced this morning demonstrate why we were dubious about the introduction of an online portal.

“We’ve heard from a number of school leaders who have faced issues logging in, saving details or getting the system to work. This has caused enormous frustration, and just adds to the time and workload required.”

Ms Hannafin said one leader told the union that the system was “awful, slow and clunky”.

She added: “It’s vital that lessons are learned from this situation, and that the system is improved to ensure it can cope with the entirely predictable demands of schools.”

End of KS2 Sats take place from today until Thursday. Results will be made available to schools on Tuesday 7 July.

After being contacted by ����Vlog for comment, the DfE confirmed that the portal had been running slowly for part of the morning and early afternoon period of Monday, but indicated that Pearson had addressed this and that the system is now running smoothly for users.

It has also indicated that there is no impact on the accuracy of the attendance registers or the DfE’s ability to track scripts, but has apologised for any inconvenience caused to users by the system running slowly.

A Pearson spokesperson said: “The NCA portal experienced a short period of slower performance on Monday morning. This was resolved quickly and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

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