ABOUT 1,500 14-year-olds from across York and North Yorkshire could face weeks more of uncertainty if their exam papers are sent back to examiners to be re-marked.

Nationally, about 100,000 students whose results were on the "borderline" between two levels for the national Key Stage Three English tests will have their papers returned to examiners after they missed out on an initial check by markers.

About a sixth of all papers sat in the exams are expected to be returned to examiners for a second marking.

With up to 9000 pupils sitting the tests across North Yorkshire and York, some 1,500 papers from the region could be returned to examiners to be re-marked.

Of these rechecked papers, about a quarter could expect to receive a higher grade.

Schools across the region have already told the Evening Press of their intentions to return some papers to be re-marked after being surprised by "scrappy and inconsistent" results.

A spokeswoman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority told the Evening Press a problem occurred because of a change to the marking system, which meant the two sections of the papers were marked by different examiners which took longer.

She said after this delay and in order to try to meet deadlines the papers were returned to schools without being checked by a second marker.

She said the authority has now recalled the papers of all students who are "borderline" between two grades to be rechecked.

She said: "Normally, papers that are borderline are checked before being sent back, but these were sent back to schools when they still needed to be "borderlined", which is why they are being reviewed at the moment."

Patrick Scott, City of York Council's director of education, welcomed the decision to recall all borderline papers.

He said: "We have found the English marking this year so unreliable that we are not even taking the results seriously until they have been re-marked.

"These problems have caused a high level of distress both for individual pupils who have not got what they expected and at school level, where teachers are extremely disenchanted by the whole process."

Last month, head teachers from Joseph Rowntree and Fulford schools told the Evening Press they were considering sending back large numbers of papers because the marking was "inconsistent and sloppy", with a large number of results lower than expected.

Updated: 09:26 Saturday, August 07, 2004