A primary school in Bolton finished the year off on an excellent note.

Harwood Meadows School pupils scored highly on their Year Six SATs results.

It the second time final year primary school pupils have completed SATs tests since the pandemic.

The school recorded its best results, with 80 per cent of children passing all three areas of reading, writing and maths compared with 59 per cent nationally and a particular strength of the school was maths where 93 per cent of the children reached the expected standard compared with 73 per cent nationally.

Julian Bevan, headteacher of Harwood Meadows said: “I am tremendously proud of the children who have all risen to any challenge that has been put in front of them. 

“These SATs scores are a result of the resilience and hard work of both children and staff, who have had to bounce back after two lockdowns and a huge amount of missed learning.

“The children have demonstrated how determined they are and that they are now ready for the next stage of their school journey when they move onto secondary school in the autumn.”

According to the Department for Education Key Stage two results show that more pupils across the UK have met the expected standard in this year’s mathematics and writing SATs assessments compared to last year.

Due to the pandemic, it was expected that there would be lower levels of attainment compared to 2019, while children caught up on lost learning.

According to DfE, this year’s results showed that 73 per cent of pupils met the expected standard in maths – up from 71 per cent in 2022.

Overall, 59 per cent of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined - the same as the result in 2022 but a decrease from 2019 which was 65 per cent.

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling results also remain unchanged from 2022.

There was a two per cent point increase in attainment in writing which is now at 71 per cent and whilst those meeting the expected standard in reading is down from 2022 from 75 per cent to 73 per cent, it remains higher compared to 2016 (66 per cent) and is in line with pre-pandemic standards (73 per cent met the expected standard in reading in 2019).

Additionally, science teacher assessments showed 80 per cent of pupils met the expected standard, up from 79 per cent last year.

Minister for School Standards Nick Gibb said: “We know that pupils have had their education disrupted due to the pandemic which is why following on from our success in the Progress International Reading Literacy Study, it is encouraging to see attainment levels improving in some key subjects.

“Our National Tutoring Programme has been crucial in helping those pupils most in need of support and our reforms – including the focus on phonics – are helping to ensure more children leave primary school with a secure grasp of reading and writing.

“Literacy and numeracy are the cornerstones of a world-class education and that is why we have invested £60m in our English Hubs programme and £100m in our Maths Hubs programme to build children’s literacy, speaking and numeracy skills.”

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