Pupils in England improving in maths but falling behind in science

Mathematics performance has significantly improved for year 5 pupils in England since 2015 but in year 9 science results have significantly declined, report UCL researchers who have analysed England's performance in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. The 2019 National Report for England, written by researchers from the UCL Institute of Education, was funded by the Department for Education. Testing of 9,595 pupils in years 5 and 9 across 368 schools in England was carried between February and June 2019 by  leading learning company, Pearson. The report, which includes comparative data from 64 countries, places pupils in England behind those in the highest-performing group of countries, but significantly above the TIMSS average scores for mathematics and science. As in previous years, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Russia all performed strongly across both subjects and year groups. Co-author Dr Mary Richardson (UCL Institute of Education) said: "Our analysis of the data means we've been able to look not only at how pupils perform in mathematics and science, but to what extent gender, socioeconomic status, school and home environment impact on their educational performance. "This year we see England has performed, on average, significantlyabove most other countries.