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PSA 10. Raise the educational achievement of all children and young people

Vision

The Government's aim is a society where all children and young people achieve their full potential and where the momentum of success, enjoyment and learning continues into their adult lives. This is essential to support the economic growth the UK needs to be globally competitive, to minimise the waste of talent and to achieve the sense of fairness and opportunity which is vital for social cohesion.

There have been major improvements in educational standards at all Key Stages over the last ten years. It is a considerable achievement that there have been gains across the board, and that the gap between children from lower income and disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers has not widened. International comparisons assign high rankings to UK education.

However, previous targets at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 have not been met and the improvements of the past decade have not delivered equal chances of success for all children and young people. While participation and achievement post 16 have been rising recently, more needs to be done to ensure that all young people benefit from the best education or training to age 19.

Over the next three years, the Government's commitment is to build on earlier improvements with two PSAs to:

raise the educational achievement of all children and young people (PSA 10)
narrow the gap in educational achievement between children from low income and disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers (PSA 11)

Measurement

Progress towards raising achievement will be measured through the following indicators:
Indicator 1: Early Years Foundation Stage attainment
Indicator 2: Proportion achieving Level 4 in both English and mathematics at Key Stage 2
Indicator 3: Proportion achieving Level 5 in both English and mathematics at Key Stage 3
Indicator 4: Proportion achieving 5 A*-C GCSEs (or equivalent) including GCSEs in both English and mathematics, at Key Stage 4
Indicator 5: Proportion of young people achieving Level 2 at age 19
Indicator 6: Proportion of young people achieving Level 3 at age 19

Target by 2011

All six indicators within this PSA have been given national targets for 2011. The target levels are as follows:

Increase the proportion of young children achieving a total points score of at least 78 across all 13 Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) scales - with at least 6 in each of the communications, language and literacy and language (CLL) and personal, social and emotional development (PSED) scales - by an additional 4 percentage points from 2008 results, by 2011
Increase the proportion achieving level 4 in both English and maths at Key Stage 2 to 78% by 2011.
Increase the proportion achieving level 5 in both English and maths at Key Stage 3 to 74% by 2011
Increase the proportion achieving 5A*-C GCSEs (and equivalent), including GCSEs in both English and maths, at Key Stage 4 to 53% by 2011.
Increase the proportion of young people achieving Level 2 at age 19 to 82% by 2011.
Increase the proportion of young people achieving Level 3 at age 19 to 54% by 2011.