The Department makes use of various methods for monitoring educational performance. Ofsted inspections, national curriculum tests and public examinations provide a framework for national and local analysis of performance against critical learning milestones. They provide measures which allow us to track changes in performance over time nationally, locally and at school level, to compare the progress of children in different schools, and to compare the performance of different groups of pupils. At local level, the National Strategies and Government Offices provide ongoing monitoring and challenge of the performance of local authorities and schools as a basis for supporting them to improve.
All these methods have contributed to the improvement in standards that we have seen over the last nine years.
Since 1997, standards in education achievement from early years to post 16 in (a) Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend constituency and (b) North East region have improved broadly in line with national levels of attainment. A summary of the 1997 outcomes (where available) compared to 2006 is set out in the following table.
1997 1998 2006 1997 1998 2006 1997 1998 2006 KS1 level 2+ Reading — 77 80 — 80 85 — 80 84 Writing — 80 77 — 81 82 — 81 81 Mathematics — 84 86 — 85 90 — 84 90 KS2 level 4+ English 51 — 76 60 — 78 63 — 79 Mathematics 51 — 74 61 — 77 62 — 76 KS3 level 5+ English 50 — 62 53 — 70 57 — 73 Mathematics 51 — 67 55 — 76 60 — 77 KS4 GCSE+equiv Percentage of 15-year-olds achieving 5+ A*-C grades 35.5 55 36.8 57.3 45.1 58.5 Notes: 1. Includes attempts and achievements by these pupils in previous academic years. 2. Key Stage 1—Figures for 2006 are based on provisional data, 1998 is based on final data. 3. Key Stages 2, 3 and 4—Figures for 2006 are based on revised data, 1997 is based on final data.
In 2004 we moved to using administrative data to measure level 2 attainment by age 19 (Level 2 is equivalent to five GCSEs at A*-C), so we cannot compare latest figures with 1997. The latest figures for the North East show 69.2 per cent. of people aged 19 in 2006 were qualified to at least level 2 compared to 64.4 per cent. of people aged 19 in 2004 (corresponding figures for England were 71.4 per cent. of people aged 19 in 2006 and 66.3 per cent. of people aged 19 in 2004).