Must do better on Primary School performance

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 10th Aug 2007

The Liberal Democrat group on Sheffield City Council have raised concerns over primary school performance in the city after the release of attainment figures for 2006-07. Lib Dems are demanding a widescale review into the underachievement under Labour control of the council.

The recently released figures show achievements by 11 year olds taking the SAT's. Figures show that Sheffield is still lagging way behind the national average for primary school pupil attainment.

Worryingly, since 2004, the gap between Sheffield and the national average has actually increased and there is little sign of the transformation that is needed to close the gap.

Places such as Leeds and Liverpool continue to out perform Sheffield. Doncaster is also way above Sheffield and just 0.1 point away from the national average. Given the performance of other similar and neighbouring authorities, Liberal Democrats believe that there is no reason why Sheffield shouldn't be aiming for a similar achievement.

The poor performance in Primary Schools mirrors the performance across the board for Education in Sheffield. This year every single target set by the council bar one was missed on pupil attainment.

Cllr Sylvia Anginotti, Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet member for Education, said: -

"An excellent Primary School education is absolutely essential, therefore these latest figures which show Sheffield still well behind the national average are worrying."

"We can see that since 2004 the gap between Sheffield and the national average has actually increased whilst other similar authorities have closed the gap and are now looking to perform above the national average. There is no reason why Sheffield shouldn't be aiming for the same."

"Unfortunately this performance is mirrored within education across the board. Its clear that we need a widescale independent review which looks into the real reasons behind the relative underachievement whilst Labour has been in control of the council."

"Our congratulations go to those individual schools that have improved performance, but we have to recognise that we must do better across the city. Unlike Labour, we should not accept that lagging behind the national average and other authorities such as Leeds, Liverpool and Doncaster is good enough."