Primary school achievements at age 11 have continued to improve this year, but the results show that the rate of progress has slowed with schools now having to work harder for the smallest of gains.

Results in the national curriculum maths test for 11-yearolds edged up by just 1 per cent, with a record 76 per cent achieving level 4, the expected standard necessary to have a chance of doing well at secondary school. English results were static, with 79 per cent achieving level 4, the same as last year.

Ministers had set a target for 2006 of 85 per cent reaching Level 4 in English and Maths, but long ago abandoned any expectation that it would be met. In science 87 per cent of pupils achieved level 4 this year, up 1 per cent on last year.

It seems that the early improvements that resulted from the literacy and numeracy strategies introduced by Labour after the 1997 election have trailed off, and schools are now struggling to bring the bottom fifth of pupils up to the standard necessary to equip them for the demands of secondary school.

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, has already taken steps to tackle this, with the announcement in September of a “back to basics” overhaul of the literacy and numeracy strategies.

Primary school pupils will be taught to read using the tried and tested “phonics” method, learning the sounds of the letters rather than whole words.

They must master their times tables by the time they are 8 — a year earlier than now — and maths lessons will focus more on mental arithmetic, using calculators only for more complicated sums.

This supplement lists results from about 14,000 state primaries in England, ranked on the aggregate of pupils who achieved level 4 in each of the three tests in English, maths and science. About 1,000 schools with ten or fewer pupils taking the tests have been excluded from the tables.

In addition to presenting the results of the highest performing schools that have exceeded performance at Level 4, the supplement also focuses on the huge effort by inspirational teaching staff who have added value to their schools by lifting the academic sights and performance of their pupils from very low levels and turned around failing schools, often against all odds.

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