Rishi Sunak has been warned that a target to boost the number of children entering secondary school with the expected standards of reading, writing and maths is “a far cry from reality”, amid new evidence that 275,000 pupils a year are leaving primary education without the right level of skills.
Ministers have set a target of ensuring 90% of children achieve the national curriculum standard in reading, writing and maths at the end of primary education by 2030. However, after several years of slow progress, attainment has slipped back to levels only slightly above those of 2015-16.
The slump means that in 2022, 41% of year 6 pupils in England left primary school without meeting the expected standards in literacy and maths – 275,000 11-year-olds, according to researchers at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) thinktank. That is 50,000 more than in 2019.
It comes amid concerns that the impact of the pandemic, and long periods of lost learning, is being felt in classrooms, particularly among children from poorer households. The report states that the attainment gap in education – that between the poorest and most advantaged – is at its widest level for a decade.
