No. & Literacy Levels of School Pupils - Find a freedom of information request

1. The number of primary and secondary school pupils in maintained schools within your authority.
2. What estimate do you have of persons leaving maintained secondary school in your authority who have a literacy level of entry level three, as defined by the 2011 Skills for Life Survey. Or, if not possible, what other estimates you use for measuring levels of literacy?

In accordance with Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, you are advised that Lincolnshire County Council does hold information that falls within the description specified in your request.

1. This information is published on the LRO http://www.research-lincs.org.uk/School-Census.aspx. 

   The most up to date pupil numbers can be found in the 'Number on Roll by School May 2019' spreadsheet (created from the May 2019 School Census data). Please note that some schools have changed from maintained to academy status since the most recent available pupil number data was collected in May 2019.  Therefore, if you require a more up to date picture you will need to cross-reference the pupil number data in this spreadsheet with the academy/maintained status data in the 'Current Schools Situation Report - Listing Of Current Lincolnshire Schools' spreadsheet (which is also available on the above webpage and is updated each month).

1. Lincolnshire County Council do not collect or have access to Entry Level data as defined by the 2011 Skills for Life Survey.  Looking at definitions of adult literacy levels on the Literacy Trust website https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/what-do-adult-literacy-levels-mean/ it says "Entry Level 3 is equivalent to literacy levels at age 9-11. Adults with skills below Entry Level 3 may not be able to understand labels on pre-packaged food or understand household bills"; in the majority of cases one might not expect to see students with Entry Level literacy completing Key Stage 4 (GCSE) study in mainstream secondary schools.  It is not possible to estimate persons leaving maintained secondary school in Lincolnshire who have a literacy level of entry level three as LCC do not have access to the data on which to base an estimate.

   Regarding what other data LCC have relating to literacy levels of students leaving maintained secondary schools, the closest might be sourced from the data that the Department for Education (DfE) provides the Local Authority with (the same base data that the DfE use to populate the Compare Schools and Colleges website (historically known as the 'League Tables' or 'Performance Tables') https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/. 

   Therefore the data LCC are able to provide is the percentage of students in maintained secondary schools in Lincolnshire at the end of Year 11 (when most students are aged 15 years) that achieve a GCSE grade of 4 to 9 (equivalent to the old A*-C pre-2017 accountability changes) in English Literature, and the percentage who achieve a GCSE grade 1 to 3 (the equivalent to the old D-G pre-2017 accountability changes) in English Literature.

   At the time of the 2019 GCSE exams Lincolnshire had 3 maintained secondary schools, the majority of secondary schools in Lincolnshire are academies (51 at the time of the 2019 GCSE exam), therefore the figures below are based on only a small subset of GCSE achievement in Lincolnshire and may not reflect the grades achieved by the full 2019 Lincolnshire GCSE cohort:

   In 2019 83% of students in maintained secondary schools in Lincolnshire at the end of Year 11 achieved a GCSE in English Literature of grade 4 to 9

   In 2019 16% of students in maintained secondary schools in Lincolnshire at the end of Year 11 achieved a GCSE in English Literature of grade 1 to 3