Tests show children years behind at 11

'Analysis of the pupils' results reveal a shocking degree of underachie vement'

Gillian Shephard criticised gaps in achievement by 11-year-olds as "unacceptable" yesterday after a study suggested that some children were four years behind the expected level.

The Secretary of State for Education and Employment said that evidence compiled by a government adviser vindicated her decision to publish league tables based on this year's tests for the age group. "Wide variations in achievement between schools and education authorities are unacceptable," she said.

Mrs Shephard said that underachievement by large numbers of 11-year-olds was not caused by a lack of resources. "It costs as much to teach a good lesson as a bad one. If many education authorities can achieve good results, they all can," she said.

Her comments followed an analysis of last year's test results by Dr John Marks, a right-wing member of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority. His study, published yesterday by the Social Market Foundation, found that the average 11-year-old was two years behind the expected level in maths and 18 months behind in English.

The best 3,000 schools were more than a year ahead of the worst 3,000 in English and more than 18 months ahead in maths. Within each local authority area, there was an average gap between the best and worst schools of almost four years in English and five and a half in maths.

Dr Marks analysed data from the Department for Education and Employment of the test results of 500,000 11-year-olds in spring 1995. Evaluations of the tests published earlier this year had already suggested that pupils were not achieving as well as they should be at 11, and the chief inspector of schools had echoed this in his 1995 annual report.

However, Dr Marks has also compared the performances of girls with those of boys, andworked out which local authorities are achieving the highest and lowest scores. He found that in maths, 16 per cent of girls and 19 per cent of boys had failed to reach the level expected of the average seven-year-old. In English, 9 per cent of girls and 15 per cent of boys had only achieved that standard.

Comparing different authorities, Dr Marks found that 77 out of 107 areas had at least one school where the average 11-year-old only reached the level of a 7-year-old in maths. Those with the highest scores were mainly the more prosperous, including Richmond, Kensington and Chelsea and Kingston- upon-Thames, all in London. Those with the lowest included the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Barking and Dagenham, and Birmingham, Manchester and Bradford.

He said the findings showed a "shocking" degree of underachievement. "There should be less saying who's to blame and more focusing people's minds on what can be done," he said.

David Blunkett, Labour's education spokesman, said that Mrs Shephard's response was inadequate. "What we need now is the use of reliable statistics as the foundation for direct action to improve standards by sharing best practice from succeeding schools with those who are struggling," he said.

Last night no one at the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority appeared to know anything about the study, but officials said their analysis of the results, published at the end of last year, had pointed to similar findings.

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that although guidelines said children should reach national curriculum level four by age 11 there were no national targets for what proportion should do so. He said he had been pressing Mrs Shephard for some time to work out targets with teachers' organisations. Children's test scores clearly needed to be improved, but he fully expected results of tests taken in spring1996 to be better than last year's.

t Almost 8,000 students have found university places through the clearing system for this autumn, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service said last night. As the latest official lists, published in today's Independent, went to press there were no places left in medicine, veterinary science or dentistry but there were vacancies in law, psychology, languages, science and engineering. About 19,000 courses were still not full; 237,400 students had been accepted.