ACCORDING to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, this year's primary school league tables show evidence of "substantial and sustained improvement".
But the most important statistic of the many that will be bandied around today is that, by the Government's own standard, one in five children still leave primary school without a proper grasp of reading and writing skills, with that figure rising to
one in four when it comes to maths. In the worst performing schools, fewer than a third of pupils can read and write properly.
-------------------------------------------
Primary School league tables in full »Hear Yorkshire Post education correspondent John Roberts debate the issues-------------------------------------------
The Government may claim it is succeeding in raising standards but with so many children moving up to their secondary schools without a solid grasp of the three Rs, large numbers of parents and employers will be less optimistic.
It goes without saying that primary education lays the foundations for everything that follows. Children who have not learned the basics before completing their primary phase are handicapped for the rest of their school careers.
Research shows that performance in national tests when children are 11-years-old foretells, with few exceptions, how they will perform later in public examinations at 16 and beyond. So if around 240,000 primary children out of some 600,000 have not reached accepted standards this year, that is not good news for them, or for their future. Nor is it good for the country.
No-one would deny that in Yorkshire and the rest of the country we have many excellent primary schools and many inspirational teachers. The problem is not with them. It lies with the considerable minority of schools and heads that, despite years of rhetoric about taking a zero tolerance approach to failing schools, are still not up to scratch.
A quick look at the primary school performance tables for any local authority published in the Yorkshire Post today shows massive variations in results. The percentage of 11-year-olds in Leeds primary schools achieving Level 4 (the expected standard) in English, varies between 100 per cent and 46 per cent. Bradford primaries showed between 100 per cent and 43 per cent. In "leafy" North Yorkshire, the variation in achievement between different primaries is similarly wide.
Clearly, such variations cannot be explained away by social factors. It is, moreover, insulting to thousands of less-prosperous families and their children to suggest that because they are poor, they cannot learn and achieve. Every year the league tables unearth countless examples of schools around the country where, despite having under-privileged pupils, they achieve near perfect results.
None of this is rocket science.
State education is controlled by national and local politicians. They must give a lead. Instead of producing almost daily initiatives to "reform" or "transform" the whole system, they should concentrate all their efforts on improving those schools at the bottom of the pile that let down their pupils.
Leaders of the educational establishment – and some parents – should also stop moaning about the stress caused by national tests and exam league tables and put the information they provide to proper use. In any event, most children enjoy tests and competition with their peers. By all means keep things simple, but the key to improving the system is identification of the institutions that are letting everyone down.
Instead of producing glossy White Papers, Green Papers and repetitive, jargon-filled guidance documents, Ministers should publish a 10-page pamphlet for politicians, their officials, school governors and heads, describing simple measures to improve a failing primary school.
Teacher training, too, is a national rather than a local responsibility. It needs to concentrate more on what works successfully, and much less on reasons and excuses for failure. This in itself would attract more bright applicants to the profession.
On a local level, individual schools, or rather their heads, governors and staff, should accept responsibility for their own performance. They should step up to the line and make themselves directly responsible to the parents. If they are not up to the job they should step out of education altogether as, of course, they would be forced to do in any private-sector enterprise.
First, they should ensure a disciplined environment and that every child learns to read within a year of entering primary school. These things go together and there are now several independently produced reading schemes that are well-proven and relatively inexpensive. An hour each day should cover that, leaving ample time for wider learning and activities.
Secondly, they should forget (as far as possible) all the waffle and politically correct, child-centred nonsense in the national curriculum. Concentrate on giving all children a solid grounding in logical arithmetic, honest science, real history, physical geography and worthwhile art, music, games, sport and religious education.
Less emphasis on computers and more on traditional whole-class teaching would also help. The world has changed, but the basic knowledge required to understand and navigate it successfully has not.
This is what the best primary schools do and always have. They don't spend weeks preparing pupils for national tests. The tests may be a minor inconvenience the children face for a few days once every few years. But well-taught children have gained confidence from their
knowledge: they just sit down and do what's expected. High league table positions and less stress for everyone follow from that.
State education has now had more than a decade of central diktats and targets following Tony Blair's infamous "education, education, education" pledge. Billions of additional taxpayers' pounds have been poured into new initiatives covering everything from literacy to truancy.
None of it has really worked. There are still too many badly- managed schools and ineffective teachers.
League tables have made the secret garden more visible. But the weeds have still to be cleared.
Nick Seaton, from York, is chairman of the Campaign for Real Education.The full article contains 1029 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
