Nursery World - More children passing phonics test

There has been a five percentage point increase in the number of six-year-olds passing the phonics reading check.

Department for Education (DfE) figures for 2014 show that 74 per cent of Year One pupils, 474,000 children, met the standard expected for their age, up from 69 per cent in 2013.

This is equivalent to 102,000 more children doing well, based on the 2014 cohort, says the DfE.

There was also a rise in the number of children who achieved full marks. This year 15 per cent of pupils scored 40 out of 40, compared to 11 per cent in 2013 and nine per cent in 2012.

However, while there was a spike in the number of children achieving the expected score of 32 per cent in both 2012 and 2013, this was not the case this year.

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