, Minister for schools standards
said:
“Under Labour we were falling in international league tables in
maths, reading and science and poor performing schools went
unchallenged and unchanged year after year.
“Thanks to Conservative education reforms there are now 1.9
million more children in good or outstanding schools, more 6 year
olds are fluent readers and the results gap between rich and poor
has shrunk by 10% in both primary and secondary school.
“Labour just want to turn the clock back, undo all of this
progress and take away choice from parents - and it’s the next
generation who will pay the price.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
-
· Under
Labour school standards plummeted. Between 2000 and
2009 England plummeted down the PISA league tables from 7th to
25th in reading, 8th to 28th in maths, and 4th to 16th in science
(DfE, Press Release, 7 December
2010, link).
-
· Academies
are raising standards, with almost 516,000 children now studying
in good or outstanding sponsored academies. There has
been a substantial increase in schools being rated good or
outstanding since becoming academies. While just 12 per cent of
sponsored academies which have been rated since converting were
rated good or outstanding beforehand, this rises to 68 per cent
since they became academies (Ofsted, 5 December
2017, link; Independent,
11 July 2018, link).
-
· 30
per cent of free schools have been judged as Outstanding,
compared to 21 per cent of all other schools. Free
schools are a type of academy established in response to local
demand. 22,000 children are currently studying at Outstanding
Free Schools across England (Ofsted Data View, 31 March
2018, link).
