THURROCK’S education supremo, Cllr Oliver Gerrish, has welcomed the latest Key Stage 2 SATs results published this week.
“The results show that overall, Thurrock has improved in every measure — by gender and by type of result – while nationally performance has stood still.
“That doesn’t mean we are complacent, quite the contrary. Here in Thurrock we have still not reached our target but we are getting closer to the national average,” said Cllr Gerrish, Thurrock Council’s portfolio holder for education.
In the “key measure” of pupils achieving Level 4 or above in both English and maths, the percentage rose by three per cent in Thurrock (68% to 71%) while the national level remained the same (74%), so the gap closed to three per cent. In this measure, Thurrock’s national ranking against all other Local Authorities was 25 places higher compared to last year.
Cllr Gerrish said: “It doesn’t matter which measure you use, these figures show that our focus on improving Key Stage 2 results is working. It’s bound to be a slow process and there are likely to be some setbacks, but there can be no doubt that we’re heading in the right direction.
“Thurrock’s secondary schools are now producing above average results and it won’t be long before the primaries are doing the same. This is just the latest step in our journey to raise the skills, education and aspiration of our young people, making them ready to grasp the opportunities Thurrock’s regeneration will bring.”
He added: “Of course, this would not have been possible without all the efforts from the schools, the teachers the parents and most importantly the pupils themselves — they should be proud of their effort and we should all be proud of them.”
There are 11 key indicators in the SATs results. Thurrock’s rating rose in every one.
