Half a million 11 year olds can’t read or write

One in five 11-year-olds are leaving primary school not able to read and show national curriculum tests today. The amount of 11-year-olds who meet the required standard in English fell by 1 per cent this year, according to figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The proportion of children reaching the required level 4 standard in maths and science has also stalled at last year's levels.

This September alone, about four in 10 children – almost 220,000 – are expected to move up to secondary school without being up to standard in the three Rs. They will struggle to punctuate basic sentences, spell words with more than one syllable or recall the six times table. About 35,000 will be completely unable to read and write. When children fall that badly behind they are destined to fail at secondary school, say experts, often leaving education at 16 with no worthwhile qualifications. "It is shocking that under Labour, nearly half a million children have so far left primary school unable to read and write," said Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, David Laws. "These children are far more likely to fall further behind and be turned off education altogether."

The result of the tests went back to schools at the beginning of last month. But teachers unions have warned that up to one in five of the results may be inaccurate. Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said today that the quality of marking has dropped because of the pressure on new contractor Edexcel to deliver results on time. The exam board took over the tests after former contractor ETS Europe was sacked after last year’s marking fiasco. Edexcel had done an “amazingly efficient job under immense political pressure after last year” to get the tests marked, Mr Brookes told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning. “However, we are concerned that this may well have been at the expense –particularly in writing _ at the quality of marking,” Mr Brookes said. 'And we have had a number of concerns from members coming in, representing thousands of children, where the quality of marking - particularly in writing - has been erratic, has been harsh, and sometimes just clerical errors where there are two writing tasks and the markers have failed to add up the two scores together.' He said the NAHT will ask new exams regulator Ofqual to investigate.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children