"But others do not yet have the confidence to embrace the Primary National Strategy in ways that will build on the progress made to date and use it to continue to improve excellence in teaching and pupils' enjoyment of learning. "There are still schools where children are not receiving the daily diet of good teaching that they need in order to raise achievement further." Schools minister Derek Twigg said: "Results in Key Stage 2 (age 11) attainment tests in English have gone up by 13 percentage points and in mathematics by 15 percentage points. "This means that more children than ever are reaching the expected standard in English and maths. These results show that having consolidated high standards over recent years, we now have a strong platform to build on." The Statistics Commission warned ministers last week that the rise in primary school test scores "substantially overstates" the actual improvement in standards. The watchdog said ministers "needed to be made fully aware of any caveats" about the interpretation of test scores. The shadow education secretary, Tim Collins, said: "The fact that at least one in three primary pupils go on to their senior school without being able to write properly is one of the single biggest failings of eight years of Labour government. "Ruth Kelly and her predecessors have managed to get so hung-up on their departmental target culture that they have lost sight of the underlying problem of classroom literacy and numeracy. "The Conservatives will ensure parents have the choice of sending their children to schools where traditional approaches to literacy have been adopted."
Ofsted report: The national literacy and numeracy strategies and the primary curriculum (pdf)
09.02.2004:
Literacy support helps trailing pupils
Department for Education and Skills: literacy strategy |