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More than 4% of primary schools fail to meet basic maths and English levels More than 4% of primary schools fail to meet basic maths and English levels
(about 11 hours later)
More than 4% of England's nearly 17,000 primary schools failed to meet the government's tougher new standards in the basics of maths and English, according to new school league tables published on Thursday More than 4% of England's nearly 17,000 primary schools failed to meet the government's tougher new standards in maths and English, according to league tables published on Thursday.
Some 767 schools failed to achieve the government's mandated floor of at least 60% of pupils achieving "secondary-ready" levels in reading, writing and maths, and were below progress measures in all three subjects.Some 767 schools failed to achieve the government's mandated floor of at least 60% of pupils achieving "secondary-ready" levels in reading, writing and maths, and were below progress measures in all three subjects.
The tests taken by pupils at the end of the 2012-13 academic year were more challenging after the government raised the floor level. Using the new measure, 834 primaries would have failed to meet the tougher standards in their 2011-12 results. The tests – taken by pupils in their last year of primary schooling at the end of the 2012-13 academic year – were more challenging after the government raised the floor level.
A spokesman for the Department of Education (DfE) said: "This government brought in higher primary school floor targets with one aim in mind – to drive up standards with immediate effect to end years of entrenched failure. Using the new measure, 834 primaries would have failed to meet the tougher standards in their 2011-12 results.
"Schools respond to this challenge. The floor standards we introduced were tougher and performance is improving. Heads, teachers and pupils deserve credit for meeting the challenge head-on." In Poole in Dorset, 33% of primaries are considered failing using the government's benchmarks. In a further 17 local authorities at least one in 10 schools did not meet the floor targets: Norfolk had 25 primaries that missed the mark; Bradford had 22, and Suffolk 21.
The slight improvement was expected after the 2013 results of the key stage two (KS2) tests of 11-year-olds – on which the primary tables are based – showed a better performance nationally. But there were wide differences in performance around the country.
This year's top school overall – based on those with 30 or more pupils taking the tests – was Fox primary in Kensington and Chelsea, west London. It gained the highest average points score at 34. Grinling Gibbons school in Deptford, which has 307 pupils, was the largest school in the top 10.
However, the best performing schools were typically smaller, with only a handful of pupils taking the tests. These were St Oswald's CofE aided primary in Chester which had eight pupils taking the tests and a score of 35.4, Litton CofE primary in Buxton with 35.0, St Joseph's Roman Catholic primary in Clitheroe, Lancashire, with 34.9, Skelton in Penrith, Cumbria, with 34.2 and Lowbrook academy in Maidenhead with 34.1.
The slight overall drop in the number of poorly performing primaries was expected after the 2013 results of the key stage two (KS2) tests for 11-year-olds – on which the primary tables are based – showed a better performance nationally.
Overall, the proportion of pupils achieving a level four result in reading, writing and maths at KS2 rose to 76% this year from 75% in 2012.Overall, the proportion of pupils achieving a level four result in reading, writing and maths at KS2 rose to 76% this year from 75% in 2012.
One of the best performing schools in the league tables was Litton primary, a tiny Church of England voluntary-aided school with just two classrooms and 45 pupils in total, in a village near Buxton, Derbyshire. The Department for Education said sponsored academies improved their performance in KS2 by three percentage points compared with 2012, while local authority mainstream schools rose by one percentage point.
Litton – which was rated outstanding by Ofsted inspectors last year – was just one of eight primary schools in the country to achieve average levels of 5A for its pupils. Litton's average point score was marginally bested by St Oswald's primary school in Chester. A DfE spokesman said: "This government brought in higher primary school floor targets with one aim in mind – to drive up standards with immediate effect to end years of entrenched failure.
St Joseph's Roman Catholic primary school, another small school near Clitheroe in Lancashire, was close behind. "Schools respond to this challenge. The floor standards we introduced were tougher and performance is improving. Heads, teachers and pupils deserve credit for meeting the challenge head-on.
There were 94 primary schools in which every child achieved at least "secondary-ready" levels in reading and maths tests, and in the teacher assessments of writing, as well as making expected progress in all three subjects. "Some of the improvements seen at new sponsored primary academies are remarkable – ending years of chronic under-performance. The expertise and strong leadership provided by sponsors is the best way to turn around weak schools and give pupils there the best chance of a first-class education."
The worst performing local authorities included Poole in Dorset, where five of the authority's 15 primary schools failed to meet the floor. Norfolk had 25 primaries that missed the mark, Bradford had 22 and Suffolk 21. Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, congratulated teachers on the results but added: "It is not surprising that some schools have fallen below the government's new floor standards for primaries, as they now have much tougher targets to achieve."
The DfE said sponsored academies improved their performance in the key measure by three percentage points compared with 2012, while local authority mainstream schools rose by one percentage point. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, also praised heads and teachers for making "incredible efforts to ensure that every child gets the best possible start in life". But he warned against using league tables as a yardstick of success.
"Some of the improvements seen at new sponsored primary academies are remarkable – ending years of chronic under-performance," the DfE spokesman said. "Relying on league table data to measure school performance – which is based on a few short tests of young children in a small number of subjects – is a terribly blinkered approach," he said. "However important it is, there is more to a child's development and their readiness for secondary school than their score in a flawed test. There is more to a school than their ranking, which conceals how hard the school must work to achieve its results."
"The expertise and strong leadership provided by sponsors is the best way to turn around weak schools and give pupils there the best chance of a first-class education." The results come the day after Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw warned that England was still a nation divided into "lucky and unlucky children".
In his second annual report, Sir Michael said that living in poverty was no longer an automatic predictor of failure at school and that many "lucky" children live in disadvantaged inner city areas and attend good schools. Other "unlucky" children are poor youngsters living in reasonably rich areas in places such as the home counties.
New DfE figures also suggest that the number of pupils in England's primary and nursery schools is set to rise to its highest level for more than 40 years, with almost five million youngsters projected to be attending state primaries alone by 2022.
Nursery school numbers are expected to peak at more than a million in four years time, before starting to decline.
The hike has been fuelled by an increasing birth rate, which has been broadly rising since 2002, according to data published by the department.The statistics show that the number of children aged under five in nurseries and schools fell every year between 1999 and 2007, before rising to 972,000 this year. This is expected to reach a peak of 1.069 million in 2017 – up 10% on 2013.
The 10 best primaries
Litton CofE, Buxton, Derbyshire
St Oswald's CofE, Mollington, Chester
Saxlingham Nethergate CofE, Norwich
St Joseph's RC, Hurst Green, Clitheroe, Lancashire
Little Milton CofE, Oxford
Grinling Gibbons, Deptford, south London
Ashurst CofE, Steyning, West Sussex
Scalford CofE, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire
Skelton, Penrith, Cumbria
Lowbrook Academy, Cox Green, Maidenhead, Berkshire
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