Primary school results let-down

Test results for 11-year-olds have failed to improve according to official figures today, showing the Government's primary school revolution has stalled.

For the second year running, despite millions of pounds spent, there has been no improvement in the level of achievement in English and maths.

This means that one in four 11-year-olds is still leaving primary school unable to read, write and perform basic maths at the level expected for their age.

The results will be a major disappointment for ministers, coming after significant improvements in primary school results in Labour's first four years in office, hailed as the major achievement of its first term.

They mean primary schools have still not hit targets set for last year by former education secretary David Blunkett - with the pledge, before he left to become Home Secretary, that he would resign if they were not achieved.

While primary school achievement is stalled, ministers will point today to an improvement in results for 14-year-olds, identified as their major priority at the beginning of Labour's second term.

In English, the proportion of 14-yearolds achieving the expected level for their age has risen from 67 to 68 per cent and in maths even more, from 67 per cent to 70 per cent, while the proportion achieving higher than expected results has risen from 45 per cent to 49 per cent.

In science, while the percentage achieving at the expected level has risen from 67 per cent to 68 per cent, the percentage doing better has risen from 33 per cent to 40 per cent.

The improvements in today's results for 14-year-olds come after several years in which test results at this age remained static.

Ministers identified it as the key priority for their second term because the achievement of thousands of children actually goes backwards in the early years of secondary school.

Ministers will point to the fact that today's group of 14-year-olds are the first to benefit both from the numeracy and literacy strategies, which re-introduced traditional teaching of the "three Rs" into primary schools.

Today's results make it virtually certain that schools will fail to reach even more ambitious targets set by the Government for next year.