Liberal Democrat Councillors have welcomed government figures released today (11 December) which show that York pupils are continuing to perform above the national average in their Key Stage 2 tests, ranking the city’s results second only to those of the East Riding in Yorkshire and Humber.
The Department for Education (DfE) published the final results for the June 2014 Key Stage 2 tests for 11 year olds. For York, these results show that:
Results at Level 4+ (the expected level of achievement for 11 year olds) : 79% of pupils achieved level 4 or above in reading, writing and maths (in line with the national average).
Results at Level 5+ (the higher level): 25% of pupils achieved level 5 or above in reading, writing and maths (1 percentage point above the national average).
The York results show that York pupils continue to perform well at school with real success stories for individual schools and pupils. Progress results across the city in general show real improvements, particularly in Reading, in which 92% of pupils achieved expected progress (1 percentage point above national), and Maths, in which 91% (2 percentage points above national) achieved expected progress. Progress in Writing is slightly below the national average at 91%.
One particular success highlighted by the 2014 results was the narrowing of the performance gap between children from deprived backgrounds and their peers. This was due to significantly improved outcomes for pupils from more challenged backgrounds with the ‘attainment gap’ has narrowing by 5 percentage points in York from 2013, compared with a national narrowing of 1 percentage point. This is in part testament to the Liberal Democrats’ £2.5 billion Pupil Premium, which helps the most disadvantaged pupils through extra funding.