I would bet the figure is higher than that. Standards are dropping daily, both in terms of the intake and staff lethargy. As for fewer schools failing now, if you keep dropping the marker by which they are judged they are bound to look better. I worked in my present school ten years ago and I assure you the standards are a lot lower now, despite an increase in resources. The teaching is a good deal worse and the curriculum content is boring both teachers and children to death. Reception classes are now nurseries and don't teach basics leaving Year one with a major headache and Year 2 with more kids than ever struggling with numeracy and literacy. I would say that Labour have 'ballsed' education up very successfully. Anything else that they are telling the electorate, is absolute spin.

Judy , Liverpool, england

I cant understand why nobody makes the obvious point that standards in schools are bound to suffer when many different languages are spoken among the schoolchildren; how can any child progress in reading, writing & talking English, when the rest of the class dont speak it? 20 percent of schoolchildren now speak English as their 2nd language. In many of our schools a white British pupil is looked upon as a curiosity. At our local school in London there are more than 90 mother tongues & a high proportion of recent immigrants or asylum seekers. It is a perfect recipe for collapsing standards in education, which is what weve got. Once in school, due to the compensation culture, I cant understand why any teacher would agree to look after any child during breaks & risk being personally fined for the behaviour of a child who will not abide by the rules. Teachers should refuse to be responsible for them & let the parents or people supporting health & safety legislation look after the kids

Lynda Plum, London, england

Change again is always one that attracts the most predictable ofresponses -fear and those activein educationcan be the most innovative yet most conservative of all in moving forward especiallyteachers! Having worked for nearly adecade in the private sector as a teacher and at managment level i left for the state sector in order to broaden my horizons and get out of one of the principal advocators of educational inequalities that exist in education -the elitism that infects the .private sector that exists un der the myth that great results i.e A level gold! is all that is needed to succeed in the world. yes such mentality exists in state schools too but less so. A refusel or fear!! to work with state schools on this new reform just sums this elitism up and t need to maintain that educational divide!

Ella Waller, Cardiff, UK