Summary

The Government is determined to close the gap between our highest and lowest attaining schools and has set ambitious targets at Key Stage 2, 3 & 4. Schools facing challenging circumstances (and/or causing concern may need more support than schools elsewhere to deliver equality of opportunity for their pupils and the DCSF has provided additional targeted support for these schools in order to raise attainment and tackle underperformance.

2008 Targets

Key Stage 4

• 60% of 15 year old pupils to achieve five or more A*-C GCSEs or equivalent by 2008.
• In all schools at least 30% of 15 year old pupils to achieve five or more A* -C GCSEs by 2008.

Key Stage 3

• By 2007, 85% of 14 year olds to achieve at least Level 5 in English, mathematics and ICT, with 80% achieving Level 5 in science, with this level of performance sustained to 2008.
• By 2008, all schools to have at least 50% of pupils achieving Level 5 or above in English, mathematics and science.

Key Stage 2

• 85% of all 11 year olds to achieve Level 4 or above in English and mathematics by 2006, with this level of performance sustained to 2008.
• By 2008, reduce by 40% the proportion of schools where fewer than 65% of pupils achieve Level 4+ in English and fewer than 65% achieve Level 4+ in mathematics. The reduction will be measured against the 2003 figures.

Targets to 2011

Several new Public Service Agreements (PSAs) have been set with the aim of both raising the attainment of all children and narrowing the gap in educational achievement between children from lower income and disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers.

The targets to raise the attainment of all pupils include the following:

• The proportion of pupils achieving level 4 in both English and maths at Key Stage 2 should increase from 71% (2007) to 78% by 2011.
• The proportion of pupils achieving 5 A*-C GCSEs or equivalent including English and maths at Key Stage 4 should increase from 46.5% (2007) to 53% by 2011.

The original targets to reduce the attainment gap included measures based on the proportion of pupils progressing by 2 National Curriculum levels in English and maths at each of Key Stages 2,3 & 4. These will be amended as a result of the recent announcement confirming that the Key Stage 3 tests will not be held from 2009 onwards.

Additional target to 2011

The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, Ed Balls have announced that by 2011 all schools should have at least 30% of pupils achieving 5 A*-C GCSEs including English and maths at the end of Key Stage 4.

The Government set out its strategy for a National Challenge programme in May 2008. Full details are available at www.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalchallenge/

Primary & Secondary National Strategies

The support that we provide to schools and local authorities complements the work of the Strategies and we work closely with their Senior Regional Directors. There are many Strategy programmes which may be suitable for schools facing challenging circumstances and those causing concern. For full details on the Strategies, please follow the link below to their website.

In 2007 the DCSF provided funding to establish additional support for primary schools that had been below the 65% floor target in English and maths for four years or more. It was anticipated that the schools selected would be able to achieve this target in 2008. The additional funding was to be used to develop bespoke interventions concentrating on those priorities for improvement most likely to improve rates of progress and raise standards. The interventions designed all made use of the tools and processes of the Improving Schools Programme (ISP), a supported whole-school, school improvement programme.

By July 2007 a number of the schools had shown significant improvement. A report is available which identifies what made the difference in 20 schools and captures their success. The majority of the schools were involved in the ISP and all the schools worked in partnership with their local authorities (LAs) to bring about improvement making use of the tools and processes of ISP.

The report is available on the National Strategies website at http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/88533

Results

Primary standards are at their highest ever levels. In 2008 81% of 11 year olds achieved level 4 or above in English and 79% did so in maths. In 1997 less than 2/3rds of 11 year olds reached this level in either subject. Substantial progress has been made to reduce the number of primary schools where fewer than 65% of pupils achieve level 4 or above. In 2003 (the baseline), 2,839 schools in English and 3,570 schools in maths did not achieve this target. By 2008, these figures had fallen to 1,193 schools in English (a reduction of 54%) and 1,648 schools in maths (a reduction of 58%).

Record numbers of 15 year olds are now achieving 5 good GCSEs or equivalent. 2008 figures show 64.8% achieved 5 A*-C grades which is an increase of 19.7 percentage points since 1997.  47.6% achieved 5 A*-C grades including English and maths (up 11.7 percentage points since 1997).

The number of schools with low GCSE level results has fallen dramatically. In 1997 there were 616 secondary schools where fewer than 25% of 15 year old pupils reached the 5 A*-C standard. In 2008 there were only 12. The number of schools where fewer than 30% of pupils reached this level has reduced from 896 to 26 during the same period.

The number of schools where less than 30% of 15 year old pupils achieve 5 A*-C GCSEs including English and maths has fallen from 1,610 in 1997 to 440 in 2008.

Related Links

National Strategies

Last Updated 16 June 2009

Published 01 February 2004