Government announces plans to rank pupils nationally

Under the plans, pupils’ Sats test results would be divided into bands of 10%, and parents and schools would be able to see where their children were placed on a national scale.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced the plans in an interview on Radio 5, saying that the current Level 4 benchmark is “unambitious and too broad”. The new threshold for the tests would be that children were “secondary ready” in maths, reading, spelling, punctuation and grammar and teachers’ assessments of writing.

The new ability bands and reporting would be implemented in 2016.