CHILDREN failing maths at primary school are unlikely to ever catch up throughout their secondary school education, new GCSE results have shown for the first time.

The latest Department for Education data yesterday revealed how 16-year-olds performed compared to the expectations set for them five years earlier after they sat their Key Stage Two exams.

While it showed 48 per cent of low-achieving 11-year-olds in Oxfordshire went on to make the expected level of progress in English for their GCSEs, just 26 per cent of them achieved the same improvement in maths – similar to the national average.

Experts blame difficulties in recruiting and hanging on to specialist maths teachers, leaving the weakest students without the help they need.

Oxford University professor John Howson said: “The picture is that if you are failed by the age of 11, the chances of you catching up are remote, unless you get some degree of special help or your parents are able to buy in private tuition outside of school.”

He added: “For many years we have not had enough qualified maths teachers, and the data shows that schools have concentrated their best maths resources on their most able pupils.

“We have maths teachers who add value where it is least difficult, but we do not have strength in depth.”

Across the county, just 5.5 per cent of pupils with prior low attainment went on to get five A* to C grades, including English and maths.

No pupils with low results at Key Stage Two managed that at The Cherwell School, The Oxford Academy, John Mason School, Fitzharrys School, Bicester Community College, Icknield Community College, Lord Williams’s School or Gillotts School.

At a scrutiny meeting reviewing school results last year, the county council’s then deputy director of education Jan Paine said retaining good maths teachers was a “key problem” for Oxfordshire’s schools.

She said good mathematicians were often recruited by hi-tech Oxfordshire businesses, while teachers’ salaries in Oxfordshire received no weighting despite high house prices.

She said: “We get university students coming here for a year or two, but when they want to buy a home they cannot afford it and move elsewhere.”

Even in high performing schools, the gap between English and maths results among low achieving pupils is stark.

Among low achievers, there is a 40 percentage point gap between rates of progress in English and maths at top-ranked Matthew Arnold School, 53 percentage points at Faringdon Community College, 50 percentage points at The Marlborough School in Woodstock and 44 percentage points at Lord Williams’s School in Thame.

Employers said school-leavers were left unemployable because they were innumerate.

Oxfordshire Federation of Small Businesses chairman Margaret Coles said: “One young man was supposedly in the top set and came to work for a joinery business, yet he couldn’t measure in metric units or do the basic mathematical things you need to be a joiner.

“He lasted five minutes.”

OXON BELOW NATIONAL AVERAGE

Overall, Oxfordshire’s GCSE performance fell below the national average for the first time, with 57.4 per cent of pupils getting five A* to C grades including English and maths, compared to 58.2 per cent across England.

Figures show just 126 of the 502 GCSE pupils in Oxfordshire receiving free school meals achieved five good grades including English and maths.

However, six of the county’s best private schools once again made it into the list of the country’s top performing schools, with top-rated St Helen and St Katharine in Abingdon ranked the 56th best school in the country based on its GCSE results.