Four in 10 primary pupils fail the three Rs

13 April 2012

A damning set of education figures crept out on the day that record-breaking GCSE results were revealed.

Four in ten children have failed to master the three Rs by the time they leave primary school, the Government has admitted.

Ministers were accused of classic New Labour "burying bad news" tactics as it emerged that:

• More than 230,000 youngsters finished primary school this year without the proficiency in reading, writing and maths to cope with the secondary curriculum.

• Almost one boy in ten will move up to comprehensive school almost completely incapable of reading.

• And seven-year-olds are performing worse in the three Rs than last year. The figures exposing the devastating scale of underperformance in subjects which employers and parents regard as crucial were posted on the Department for Education website.

They also revealed Labour's spectacular failure to meet flagship Treasury targets for raising primary school achievement.

Its key stage national curriculum tests showed that children's performance in reading actually went backwards, keeping ministers wide of targets they should have achieved in 2002.

And more stretching 2006 goals for raising the attainment of 11-year- olds were missed by a huge margin even though billions has been committed over nine years to literacy and numeracy initiatives.

Ministers' chances of ever meeting the targets faded further with the disclosure that seven-year-olds' performance dipped in all three key subjects of English, maths and science for what is believed to be the first time in the history of the tests.

Ministers were accused of deliberately issuing the figures at the same time as GCSE results - likely to claim most public attention.

Top-grade passes shot up as pupils notched up As and A*s in almost one in five exams.

But the headline trend masked a switch from traditional disciplines to trendy 'soft' subjects. Take-up of GCSEs in French and German has plummeted with a corresponding rise in the numbers doing media studies.

A well-placed Government source admitted there was no need to issue both sets of results on the same day.

The national curriculum figures revealed the shock stalling of Labour's primary school revolution, which has swallowed up massive public investment despite the continuing failure to meet Treasury targets.

Improvements in test results for 11-year-olds have ground to a halt in English while maths crept up one percentage point.

It means only 60 per cent of pupils - and 54 per cent of boys - reached the standard expected of a youngster leaving primary school in reading, writing and maths.

A decline in boys' reading standards was largely responsible for flagging English results, the figures showed. More than one in five boys failed to reach expected levels in reading - and almost one in ten will start secondary school with rudimentary reading skills.

Only 59 per cent achieved the required 'level four' standard in writing despite improvements on last year.

The English pass rate for boys and girls together was calculated at 79 per cent - the same as in 2005. It means ministers have failed even to meet targets they laid down on coming to power in 1997 for achievement in 2002.

Former Education Secretary David Blunkett boldly declared he wanted 80 per cent of pupils to pass English and 75 per cent maths.

While the maths goal was met last year, English still remains stubbornly off target.

Results in assessments for seven-year-olds spelled even worse news yesterday as standards deteriorated one percentage point in all three key subjects of English, maths and science.

It follows a move away from formal 'high-stakes' testing of seven-year-olds to teacher assessments which rely on observation during the year and written 'tasks' given to pupils when staff consider them ready.

The switch was widely predicted to result in an improvement in scores as teachers made allowances for pupils frightened by testing.

However the results show the opposite trend.

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