How Milton Keynes Primary Schools Are Doing

12.00.00am GMT Fri 2nd Dec 2005

School-by-school tables showing the performance of 11-year-olds who took national tests in May have been published.

Overall top performers across Milton Keynes were St Thomas Aquinas, Portfields and Cedars. Several schools achieved their best-ever performance, with big improvements on previous years. These included Abbeys, Brooksward, Chestnuts, Drayton Park, Portfields, Queen Eleanor, Southwood, Stanton, Water Hall and Wellsmead.

The performance tables also show a 'value-added' measure for each school. This gives an indication of the progress, relative to their ability, made by pupils from age 7 to age 11. At Abbeys, Brooksward, Cedars, Portfields, Stanton, Southwood, St Thomas Aquinas and Wavendon Gate in particular, pupils made much greater average progress than pupils across England as a whole.

Special mention must go to Abbeys School in Bletchley, which showed a 34% improvement on its results in 2004 and achieved well above national performance. Headteacher Christine Burnett said: "I put this down to our strong staff team, the quality of the teaching at the school, the individual attention given to pupils, and the support and training provided by the local authority. We have very high expectations of our pupils and they respond very well."

Councillor Sandra Clark, Liberal Democrat cabinet member with responsibility for children and young people, said: "Congratulations to schools, their staff and pupils for these achievements. Schools are working together to improve standards and we expect the changes made to ages of transfer between schools will lead to further improvements in results for 11-year-olds in the coming years."