Results of this year’s national tests for England show 77% of 11-year-olds reached the standard expected by the government, up one percentage point from last year. Not really sure what this means.
Perhaps more interesting is that a Manchester University study has shown that progress in maths stalls in the early secondary school years once the dreaded SATs are over with little progress made in year 7. I can well believe this to be true for many reasons: short term cramming in Primary Schools with at least one hour of maths every day followed by less maths in Secondary School. Another factor could be low expectations in Secondary Schools as children do again much of the work carried out in Year 6.