THE latest education statistics for Kirklees paint a mixed picture.

While standards generally continue to rise, improvement is slower in some areas than the national average.

Results for five to seven-year-olds have fallen in Kirklees at a time when national achievement levels are rising, taking the council’s schools below the national average at Key Stage 1.

And while Kirklees is holding its own against other local authorities in West Yorkshire, some of the results in neighbouring Calderdale for 2012 have improved in leaps and bounds.

Regionally, the council is performing well for Foundation, Key Stage 1 and GCSEs, topping the county charts at these three levels.

The new figures are divided into sections at each Key Stage of a child’s development.

However, there are no figures published for Key Stage 3 (Ages 11-15).

The main findings for the other stages are:

Foundation Stage (Ages 3-5)

Kirklees is slightly above average for the attainment of all pupils, having shown steady improvement over the last three years.

However, the gap between the bottom 20% of children and the average child is worse in Kirklees than across the rest of the country.

Girls are still achieving 15% higher than boys of this age, although the gap is narrowing slightly. At this first stage, Kirklees’ results are the best in West Yorkshire.

Key Stage 1 (Ages 5-7)

Pupils were assessed in the key areas of reading, writing, maths and science. Despite standards rising across the board nationally, results in Kirklees have slipped since last year.

Reading, maths and science all showed a 1% drop in results, while writing remained the same. National results have improved slightly since 2011. Kirklees schools’ are average for maths and science and just above the national average for reading and writing.

The council is, however, still leading the way in West Yorkshire.

Key Stage 2 (Ages 7-11)

Kirklees is below the country’s average in all the four Level 4 areas of English, reading, writing and maths. Although local schools are continuing to improve and to close the gap, they are doing so far slower than other schools around the country.

Combined English and maths results for England and Wales are 80%, compared with 76% in Kirklees – which means that the local authority has failed to meet its DfE-led target by 2%.

The number of local pupils achieving Level 5 at this age is also 4 to 5% below national levels.

Calderdale leads the way at this age group with results of 88% – a 7% increase over the last two years.

Key Stage 4 (Ages 15-16)

Kirklees leads the West Yorkshire table for GCSE results including English and maths and is 3% above the national average, having shown a big improvement over the last two years.

The council’s performance was, however, poor in the English Baccalaureate, introduced in January 2011, which takes English, maths humanities, two sciences and a language into account.

Only 13.4% of Kirklees’ pupils achieved this level, compared with 18.1% nationally. In 2013, local schools may tailor their curriculum towards Baccalaureate requirements.

A council spokesman said: “Overall attainment levels in Kirklees are continuing to rise and in a number of cases we are performing extremely well.

“Although there is much to celebrate, we’re also determined that the hard work of all concerned will continue being reflected by further improvements.

“For example, we are proud that Kirklees is the highest performing West Yorkshire council at both Early Years Foundation Stage and for the latest GCSE results – in which we are above the national average and show an increase of more than 14 per cent since 2009.

“We have seen some outstanding A-Level achievements, while the equally important vocational results for post-16s continue to do well.

“A strong partnership exists between all those who work to support young people’s achievement – both during and after their time in school or college – and there is no question that Kirklees is heading in the right direction.”