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Positive Activities for Young People

Diana Organ: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills why the money for the Positive Activities for Young People Initiative is not paid directly to youth and community services. [169880]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: Positive Activities for Young People is a targeted programme that aims to provide diversionary and developmental activities for young people aged eight to 19 years who are at risk of social exclusion or committing crime. There was no one organisation at the local level which covered the whole age group or range of activities. In order to meet the above objectives and to ensure that regional needs and priorities were met, Government Offices were chosen to administer the programme. It is also the role of Government Offices to work with local partners such as Youth Offending Teams and Behaviour Improvement Programme schools to ensure that the target group of young people is reached.

52 Lead Delivery Agents (LDAs) have been appointed across England to manage the delivery of the programme and the performance of the providers delivering the activities. In eight of the 52 areas the LDA role is performed by the Local Authority Youth Service.

SATs

Stephen Hesford: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the Key Stage One pilots; and if he will make a statement. [169790]

Mr. Miliband: The trial started in September 2003 and will cover the 2004 Key Stage 1 assessments, which are not due to be completed until the second half of the summer term. It is therefore too early to have made an assessment of the trial at this stage.

QCA has commissioned an independent evaluation from Leeds university which will focus on a representative sample of 150 of the 5,000 schools taking part in the trial. The evaluation will look at workload and whether the new arrangements ensure really robust and comparable results that can be used as a basis for calculating value-added. We expect a full report to be ready at the beginning of September.

School Sports

Mr. Neil Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the level of investment in school sports in Wigan since 1997. [169275]

 
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Mr. Stephen Twigg: The information is not held in the format requested. Within the context of the statutory National Curriculum, where Physical Education (PE) is compulsory for pupils aged 5–16, it is for individual schools to use their budgets as they judge appropriate.

The Government are investing more than £1 billion in England to transform PE, school sport and club links. The funding will help deliver an ambitious Public Service Agreement target, shared with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to increase the percentage of 5–16 year olds who spend a minimum of two hours each week on high quality PE and school sport within and beyond the curriculum to 75 per cent. by 2006.

The Department is providing just over £830,000.00 to support the delivery of a School Sport Partnership in the Wigan LEA area. The partnership includes 14 secondary and 40 primary schools and provides enhanced sports opportunities for all young people to ensure that their pupils spend a minimum of two hours a week on high quality PE and School Sport. A key objective for all School Sport Partnerships is to ensure that the improvements and enhanced opportunities that they deliver are sustainable and embedded within schools to ensure a lasting legacy. The New Opportunities Fund has provided schools in the Wigan LEA area with over £4.3 million specifically to enhance PE and school sport facilities.

Jim Dobbin: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much money has been invested in Heywood and Middleton since 1997 to build long-term sustainable facilities for school sports. [169439]

Mr. Miliband: We do not hold information at constituency level. The majority of capital funding is now allocated to schools and authorities by needs-related formulae. This enables them to decide how to target the rapidly increasing resources to address their highest priority needs in line with local asset management plans. I would direct my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to his question 168497, which lists capital allocations made to Rochdale local education authority since 1997. Rochdale also received £2,873,000 in November 2001 under the New Opportunities PE and Sports Programme, which is administered by the New Opportunities Fund.

School Tests

Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the merits of performance testing in schools. [169953]

Mr. Miliband: Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning. National Curriculum testing provides an objective means of testing all children in the country on a consistent basis. It is an important part of
 
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the overall drive to raise standards in the core subjects at the primary and secondary stages and lays firm foundations for future learning.

The information from testing helps teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses, which can then be used to inform teaching and learning. It allows us to compare the progress of children in different schools and provides parents with clear feedback against national standards.

Mr. Cummings: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of 11-year-old pupils in the Easington constituency, broken down by school, have reached level four in mathematics and English in the last four years; and if he will make a statement. [168070]

 
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Mr. Miliband: The results from the 2003 National Curriculum tests showed that 75 per cent. of 11-year-olds in England reached Level 4 in English and 73 per cent. in mathematics. These results represent a significant improvement in standards—of 12 percentage points in English and 11 percentage points in mathematics—since 1997, reflecting the impact of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies on primary schools. We remain absolutely committed, through our new Primary Strategy, to supporting schools to achieve the ambitious targets we have set for standards of literacy and numeracy.

The results for Easington constituency as a whole, are slightly below the national average in English and above the national average for mathematics and show only a small improvement in mathematics since 2000.

The results for Easington constituency broken down by school are as follows:

	Percentage of pupils achieving level 4
	2003		2002		2001		2000
School Name	English	Maths	English	Maths	English	Maths	English	Maths
Acre Rigg Junior School	68	61	73	62	57	66	73	60
Blackball Colliery Primary School	51	60	64	71	71	63	80	75
Cotsford Junior School	68	77	71	82	78	85	78	70
Dene House Primary School	64	68	63	63	69	75	82	76
Deneside Junior School	51	59	78	77	73	67	38	53
Easington CofE Primary School	100	75	83	83	73	67	71	82
Easington Colliery Primary School	70	67	58	65	76	55	60	51
Eden Community Primary School	60	42	—	—	—	—	—	—
Eden Hall Junior School	—	—	56	53	50	66	56	62
Haswell Primary School	54	54	20	27	50	29	58	47
Hesleden Primary School	85	92	86	86	63	74	87	67
Howletch Lane Primary School	89	91	68	88	86	90	84	87
Murton Jubilee Primary School	75	88	93	85	64	89	74	84
Murton Primary School	70	91	90	97	71	75	63	73
New Seaham Primary School	84	93	86	95	83	90	90	100
North Blunts Primary School	74	83	70	76	66	59	50	43
Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary	90	85	85	69	88	88	89	89
Our Lady of the Rosary Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary	84	91	73	75	79	86	81	75
Our Lady Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary	62	81	68	75	84	68	81	81
Princess Road Junior School	66	56	68	50	67	73	65	76
Ropery Walk Primary School	63	56	81	81	77	77	76	79
Shotton Hall Junior School	85	81	70	79	75	76	82	75
Shotton Primary School	59	65	57	59	63	57	65	64
South Hetton Primary School	76	76	94	97	100	96	88	88
St Cuthbert's Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	72	72	84	94	88	96	79	86
St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	88	88	100	100	91	100	100	83
St. Mary Magdalen's Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	79	86	76	79	96	87	91	91
Westlea Primary School	80	89	73	89	84	87	71	63
Yohden Primary School	65	74	63	67	57	71	55	72
Easington Constituency (all schools)	71	73	71	74	73	74	71
England (all schools)	75	73	75	73	75	71	75	72

Note:
The results for St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Murton and Glendene School have been suppressed as there are less than 11 pupils at Key Stage 2

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