Today Sats results are being returned to schools - the first set of results after 2016‘s new, tougher tests.

Around 550,000 pupils took the tests in reading, maths and spelling, punctuation and grammar (Spag) in May as part of reforms to the primary testing system which headteachers have described as “chaotic and distracting”.

And Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, warned yesterday that the key stage 2 exams could not be compared with previous years saying lower results would not mean children had “performed any worse” but rather that the bar had been raised.

Was that statement going to help to calm the nerves of headteachers waiting to log onto the website which held their results?

Many headteachers were waiting at their computers... or elsewhere

The scaled score conversion tables were published - showing how many raw marks pupils needed for each scaled score. A scaled score of 100 or more shows that pupils have reached the expected standard.

The reading test, which had already reduced children to tears, was now worrying teachers.

On the TES community forums teachers described their concerns - and shared results.

One teacher said: “Not surprisingly those who did much worse on the reading than expected were those who went into meltdown because of THAT test!”

Another wrote that 65 per cent  had reached the expected standard in reading compared to 80 per cent achieving the level 4b [the standard schools were told was equivalent the new standard] last year. “Will be very interested in the national percentage now compared to last year.”

And after a long night, there are going to be some long days.

“I’m looking at about 30 per cent combined RWM [reading, writing, mahs],” said one headteacher. “I despair, I really do. Our kids are largely from Roma Gypsy Czech and Romanian backgrounds and the tests were just beyond them.

“I woke up at midnight to log in and spent the next hour long awake mentally composing the letter I want to send to parents with the kid’s results. Going to be a long day studying scripts today.”

Some provisional national scores, including the percentage of pupils getting the expected level in reading, writing and maths, will be published today. But the progress statistics will not be published.