[West Ender]

The figure of 50% of children leaving school illiterate and innumerate seems incredibly high and I wonder where this 50% is concentrated. If it is universal, given that a fair proportion of Accyweb members have children at school there should be a number of those children who fall into this catagory. Is there anyone on here whose child cannot read, write or add up?

Assuming the answer to that question is "No" we must also assume that the "failures" are concentrated in particular areas/schools. I know that there are no children in our 4 local schools who fall into this sphere and the primary schools in Warrington have good reputations. Some are better than others but there have been no Ofsted failures.

I can only speak of the schools with which I am familiar but, though teaching methods are very different from when I was at school, the children do seem to learn. The curriculum is much wider but, certainly in the case of my granddaughter's primary school, English and Maths are still priority, as was also the case with my grandson's school in Warrington (he went on to Manchester Grammar). It must be very different in schools where many of the children's first language is not English and I wonder if this is where the figure comes from.

I think the question of school discipline and parental interaction must also count. I would not like to be a teacher struggling to educate children whose parents don't really give a damn how their children learn or behave at school and who is prevented by law from imposing discipline on the feckless and obnoxious child. In that field the government is definitely to blame.