WITH recent and disturbing headlines such as "Pupil exclusions rising", "600-strong forum calls for health service judicial review", "Council 'shamed' over homes inspections", and "tenants owe £1.8 million in rent", it is good to hear that Bury's 11-year-olds have once again done us proud.

To rank seventh out of 135 local education authorities with an aggregate figure of 238.4 for Key Stage Two pupils achieving Level Four or above in English, maths and science - when the national average is 215.8 - is truly remarkable.

However, and as with every statistical exercise - whether it be homeless single people sent to live in unfit hostels or council tenants with 12 weeks or more of rent arrears - the figures hide another and perhaps less palatable reality which anyone interested in addressing social exclusion and poverty in Bury ought to take a closer look at.

Whilst out of Bury's 65 primary schools, 51 have achieved above national average results, 14 of them did not. In other words, nearly one in five of our primary school is still failing to equip the majority of its pupils with the basic skills in literacy and numeracy necessary to move with confidence onto the secondary stage of their education.

So, although it is right and proper for chief education officer Harold Williams and Councillor Andrea Hughes to congratulate themselves on these excellent overall results, they should not be distracted from facing up to the challenge of ensuring that each and everyone of our town's 11-year-olds has the opportunity to reach the level of achievement required in English, maths and science to make the most of his or her secondary school education. Following innovative practices from a number of councils with similar problems, what Bury could do is to primarily ensure that all the 14 primary schools in question have an after-school club or homework club. In addition, school governors and PTAs should investigate opening these schools at weekends and during school holidays when top-up coaching and meaningful activities could be organised for all those pupils who would want to avail themselves of the extra help on offer.

Such exciting initiatives, based on partnerships between local authorities, primary schools and their teachers, parents and volunteers have been running for a number of years in other parts of the country and have proved to be extremely popular. In Bury we do have a number of substantial pockets of poverty where educational achievement is significantly lower than in more affluent neighbourhoods.

If Bury Council's declared aims to "promote measures to reduce the impact of poverty as a contributor to exclusion from society" (Sept 1997) was meant to be more than a paper exercise, then a plan to give all our 11-year-olds the opportunity to achieve the level of literacy and numeracy they will need to make the most of their secondary education must be as good a place to start as any.

As Coun Hughes rightly states: "To see our youngsters getting off to such a tremendous start in their early years obviously bodes well for the future".

Indeed, as long as it is clearly understood that we are talking about the future of all of our youngsters and that everything in the education committee's power will be done to see that "equality of opportunity for all " is being pursued in practice and is seen to be pursued.

NICOLE IVANOFF,

Guiseley Close, Bury.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.