More success for Shropshire primary schools

Primary school results for last year’s national curriculum tests for 11-year-olds were published on Thursday 13 December 2012, showing an all-time high performance by Shropshire pupils.

The Key Stage 2 tables confirm the percentage of children achieving the nationally expected Level 4 or above in English and mathematics combined, and the percentages of pupils who made expected or better than expected progress in English and mathematics separately (a calculation based upon their prior attainment at the age of seven).

Many Shropshire primary schools have achieved above the national average on all measures and the county’s overall performance was again at an all-time record high.

The percentage of pupils achieving Level 4 or above in both core subjects rose from 76% last year to 82% this year.

When compared to the other authorities in the West Midlands, Shropshire comes second or third out of 14 in all areas.  When judged against a group of 11 local authorities described as our statistical neighbours (those with similar demography) Shropshire is in first place in all aspects of English and first place for Level 4 in mathematics.

There were 20 Shropshire schools where 100% of their year six pupils achieved Level 4 or above in both English and mathematics, 47 schools where all pupils made at least two levels progress in English, and 34 schools where all pupils made at least two levels progress in mathematics.

There were a number of schools where every child achieved Level 4 or above in both subjects and where all pupils made at least expected progress. This is a significant increase on last year, where four schools achieved this. The schools achieving this excellent performance were:

Many more schools made significant improvement on their previous performance. Value-added figures generally range from 99.0 to 101.0, with 100 being the average, but Condover CE and St Mary’s CE Bucknell had scores of 102, which indicates excellent progress.

Six Shropshire schools had value-added figures above 101, which is also extremely positive.  These schools were Cleobury Mortimer, Criftins CE, Highley, John Wilkinson, St George’s CE Clun and Woore.

Councillor Cecilia Motley, Shropshire Council Cabinet member for education and skills, said:

“These are excellent results again, and we would like to thank pupils, parents, carers and staff for all their hard work.  The results show another all-time high for Shropshire, which is a great demonstration of how well our pupils are doing at school.”