Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of attainment of (a) early years, (a) primary and (c) secondary pupils in Oldham as a result of its status as an Opportunity Area compared with those levels in other areas.

Evidence is at the heart of the Opportunity Areas programme. We are working closely with the ‘What Works Centres’ (including the Education Endowment Foundation) to identify and implement evidence-based interventions in Opportunity Areas that offer the best value for money and the potential to drive real change.

We continue to track progress in all of the Opportunity Areas to determine whether improvements have been realised against the priorities identified at the outset of the programme. The priorities identified in the Oldham Opportunity Area can be found in the delivery plan published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-mobility-and-opportunity-areas. An evaluation of the programme is underway and will be published in due course.

In 2017, the percentage of children in early years education achieving a good level of development by age 5 in Oldham was 63.6%. In 2019, this percentage had increased to 68.1%, which is an increase of 4.5 percentage points.

The increase in all children in England achieving a good level of development by age 5 between 2017 and 2019 was 1.1 percentage point. In comparison, Oldham’s attainment in early years has increased faster than the England increase. With 68.1% of children achieving a good level of development by age 5, Oldham remains below 2019’s England average of 71.8%.

In Oldham, the percentage of pupils in primary school reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at the end of key stage 2 increased from 57.2% in 2017 to 62.7% in 2019. This is a 5.5 percentage point increase. This is higher than the increase in England of 3.7 percentage points. At 62.7% of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at the end of KS2 in 2019, Oldham remains below the 2019 England average of 65.3%.

In Oldham, the average Attainment 8 scores of pupils in secondary school at the end of key stage 4 had decreased by 1.5 percentage points between 2017 and 2019: it decreased from 43.6% in 2017 to 42.1% in 2019. This decrease was larger than the decrease in England of 0.4 percentage points, from 46.4% in 2017 to 46.8% on 2019. In 2019, Oldham’s Attainment 8 scores of pupils at the end of key stage 4 were 4.7 points lower than the England average.

For comparison to other areas, the department’s published data for early years can be found at this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-early-years-foundation-stage-profile, data on primary school pupils can be found at this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-key-stage-2, and data on secondary school pupils can be found at this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-gcses-key-stage-4.