New report shows primary school students do better in grammar, spelling

Children who speak English as a second language more likely to improve at primary school, official figures show, revealing also that white pupils are falling behind.

New statistics released by the Department for Education (DfE) reveal that non-native speaking children perform better than their English speaking counterparts at grammar, punctuation and spelling as well as mathematics.

For the first time, the DfE has measured how much progress primary school children have made, as well as how many have met the national standard for the three R’s.

Children who speak English as a first language have regressed in reading, writing and arithmetic, while non-native speakers have shown vast improvement in all three.

Professor Alan Smithers, head of the centre for education and employment research at Buckingham University, said that “new arrivals become the focus of attention” for teachers, leading to faster improvement.

“Some very bright children come to this country or are born to immigrants. At first they are not familiar with the language but as they move through the primary school their fluency increases,” he said.

“In the case of the white children, they will have had every opportunity to learn the language already, so they may well be working closer to the top of their potential than the children who have come from abroad.”

The data also show that white children are showing no progress at all in reading, and are regressing in writing and maths. Meanwhile, almost all other ethnic groups are excelling in all three categories.

Professor Smithers said that when it comes to the speed of children’s improvement at primary school, cultural factors are at play.

“The children from Asian countries do very well in international studies and in part that is due to a culture of hard work, and parents providing every encouragement for their children to do well,” he said.

He added: “English children have had every opportunity to benefit from our education system whereas new arrivals seize the excellent opportunities that are there for them.”

Almost half (47 per cent) of primary school children are failing to obtain the Government’s expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics, while only 5 per cent achieved a high standard, according to the Government’s new benchmarks.

Almost 200,000 children are at primary schools which are considered to be under-performing, in the wake of controversial changes to SATs tests and the primary school curriculum.

In total, 665 mainstream primaries in England — representing 5 per cent — fell below the Government’s floor standard this year, according to the DfE.

This year, schools are considered under-performing if fewer than 65 per cent of pupils reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, or if they fail to make sufficient progress in these three key areas.

The statistics also show wide regional variations, with children in London the most likely to get a decent education, while those in the South West and the East Midlands are the least likely to get access to a good primary school.

In some areas of England, all primaries are considered to be performing well against key government targets, while in others, significant numbers are failing to meet the threshold.

London has the lowest proportion of schools below the Government’s benchmark at 1 per cent (15 primaries). In comparison, the South West and East Midlands have the highest

The new progress measures aim to capture the progress that pupils make from the end of key stage 1 to the end of primary school (key stage 2) in reading, writing and maths separately. In this measure, pupils’ results are compared to the actual achievements of other pupils nationally who started at a similar level.

How is a school’s progress measure calculated? Pupils are orgnised into groups with other students nationally who were working at a similar level in key stage 1. The average key stage 2 score for each group is then worked out. An individual pupil’s progress score is worked out by calculating the difference between their actual key stage 2 score and the average key stage 2 score of the group. The school’s progress score is calculated by taking an average of all pupils’ progress scores

A school must achieve at least -5 in English reading, -5 in mathematics and -7 in English writing to reach the floor standard (were ‘0’ means that pupils in a school made the same progress as those with similar prior attainment nationally).

First language:

Progress score for key stage 2, or schooling during years three through six for students aged seven to 11. Negative numbers indicate worse progress than expected.

2 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 English Not English percentage of under-performing schools, at 7 per cent for each region (98 and 87 schools respectively).

An analysis of the data also shows that at local council level, there are 35 authorities with no schools failing to meet the floor target.

The majority of these are in London (20 areas), followed by five in the South East, three in the North East, two each in the South West and North West, and one each in eastern England, East Midlands and the West Midlands.

School Standards Minister Nick Gibb said this year’s SATs tests — or national curriculum tests — are the first to test pupils on a new primary curriculum introduced in 2014, which was brought in to “raise expectations” and ensure youngsters get a good grounding in the basics.

But one union leader slammed the results, saying the data “is not worth the paper it is written on.”

Education Secretary Justine Greening had previously pledged than no more than six percent would be below the benchmark. She also promised that no school would face outside intervention based on this year’s data alone.

This year’s SATs tests have been fraught with controversy. Teachers raised concerns about the difficulty of the tests — particularly the reading