Primary schools have failed to return to pre-lockdown standards across reading, writing and maths, new figures reveal. The Telegraph has more.
Key stage 2 Sats results, which assess attainment in literacy and maths for Year Six pupils in England, showed only 61% of pupils achieved the expected level in the three core disciplines this year.
While up one percentage point compared to 2023, it is still significantly off the 65% achieved in 2019, before the Covid pandemic and controversial lockdowns.
The new figures add to the mounting evidence of the harm to children caused by the physical closure of schools in 2020 and 2021.
The current crop of 10 and 11-year-olds “experienced disruption to their learning”, the Department for Education said on Tuesday, “particularly at the end of Year 2 and Year 3”.
In individual subjects, scores were higher than last year, or the same.
In total, 74% met the expected standard in reading, up from 73%, and 72% met the expected standard in writing, up from 71%.
More than four in five – 81% – met the expected standard in science, up from 80%.
Overall, 72% met the expected standard in grammar, punctuation and spelling, which was the same as last year, and 73% reached the expected standard in maths, which is also unchanged.
However, only just over six in 10 pupils showed a satisfactory standard in each of the three disciplines reading, writing and maths.
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