9% of 11-year old boys can’t read! So what?
You can tell that news is sparse on the ground – unlike the snow. The newspapers have already done a blanket coverage on the snow and how the UK again skidded to a halt, so they can’t do that one again. Instead, the press is trumpeting on about how terrible it is that 9% of boys can’t read properly when they leave primary school.
Apparently BBC Radio 4 asked the Department of Education for the number of children who failed to reach level 2 reading age, the standard expected for seven-year olds, and found out that around 18000 boys aged 11 had a reading age of seven or less. This was in contrast to other statistics that have shown a steady rise in standards – with children achieving the expected minimum level 4 having gone up from 49% of children to 81% in the last 15 years.
Seemingly, even worse, in some areas – for example Nottingham – 15% of boys failed to get past the level 2 reading level.
The problem with all this isn’t the statistic but the lack of context. When reporting information (whether for competitive intelligence, general business or marketing research, or whatever) it is essential to include the context. A figure on its own is meaningless. In fact, those figures for Nottingham could be brilliant – if five years ago, 30% of boys had failed to get past the level 2 reading level. It would mean that the numbers of children failing had halved. Conversely if the number had gone up from 5% then this would be a massive indictment against the teaching profession who were failing to motivate and educate their pupils.
In fact, the original story from the BBC does give some context.
In 1995, the proportion of 11-year-olds getting Level 2 or below in English – the standard expected of a seven-year-old – was 7%. In 2010, it had fallen only to 5%.
The figures show the problem is worse for boys. Overall in England, 9% of them – about 18,000 – achieved a maximum of level 2 in reading.
This shows that in fact, performance has improved overall, with underachievers falling from 7% in 1995 to 5% of all children now. However without a longer-term trend it is impossible to put much value into the statistics – especially as other research reported by the BBC looking at seven year olds showed that children with special educational needs, and from deprived homes (meaning that they were entitled to free school meals), were the worst performers. A third (33.6%) of seven years olds on free school meals failed to reach the requisite level 2 in writing and 29.3% failed to reach this level for reading. In contrast, the children who did not receive free school meals did much better – only 12.1% failed to reach the required level for reading, and 15.5% for writing.
I’m actually surprised that some mathematically-challenged journalist hasn’t picked up on these figures and claimed that providing free school meals results in children under-performing at school. In reality, all the figures show is that such children have barriers to learning that schools have to try to overcome. This may be because the children are under-stimulated at home (and so start at a lower level than their peers), come from homes where English is not spoken by the parents or are of lower intelligence overall. (In fact, intelligence tends to fall on a normal curve. If 10% of children outperform – and have a reading age 3 years ahead of the norm, you can expect that a further 10% will have a reading age 3 years less than the norm).
The lesson from such statistics and reporting is simple: before publishing statistics in the press or in a business report provide a context.
This context can be temporal – looking at how figures change over time. In the case of the school statistics, they appear to have improved over the years for both the low and average achievers – a testament to the teaching profession. Context can also be seen when comparisons are made – as in the comparison between children on free school meals versus those not entitled to this benefit.
Strategic decisions based on figures should only be made when context is included. Without it, the figures mean nothing, and should be left to melt away, like snow.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Recent Posts
- Apple & disruptive innovation: 4 questions innovators need to ask before moving forward!
- X-mas Advertising: John Lewis, M&S and Debenhams Christmas Ad Campaigns Compared
- Competition or Co-operation? Collaborate & Co-operate to build and not to destroy.
- Freedom of Speech, Abuse and Social Media
- Pluralistic Ignorance
- Testing perceptions – Myers-Briggs and false appearances
- The iWatch – is this the next disruptive innovation from Apple?
- If you will it, it is no dream…
- The impact of disruptive innovation – on PCs and on Retail
- Why six-sigma, just-in-time and lean manufacturing are dangerous!
- Entrpreneurs 2012 – Con-Trick or Conference: a review!
- Microsoft’s Surface and Disruptive Innovation!
Archives
Topic List
Tag Cloud
AIIP Amazon analysis Apple applegate AWARE bias Bible Bing case study change China CI communication competitive analysis Competitive Intelligence Competitive Strategy competitor analysis competitors counter-intelligence decision making disinformation disruptive innovation Education ethics exalead Facebook Gaza Genesis Google Google Squared India industrial espionage information information collection innovation intelligence ipad iran islam Israel Key intelligence topics KITs lateral thinking leadership leaks LinkedIn management marketing marketing intelligence Microsoft networking news news analysis Other plagiarism privacy product development Sarah Palin scenario planning SCIP search engine search engines searching Security social media statistics strategy terrorism Twitter Wikileaks Wikipedia WolframAlpha yahoo! YaubaBlogroll
- AWARE – Competitive Intelligence for Business Success AWARE’s web-site – lots of options to learn more about CI and MI.
- Julian's The Write Way – How to produce good documentation
- Miriyummy – recipes & stories behind them
Competitive Intelligence Blogs, etc.
Ideas for Marketing and Information
Search Information
Worth a visit...
Latest Tweets…
- 3 people followed me // automatically checked by fllwrs.com 1 day ago
- Still not too late to book a place on the next ICI #OSINT workshop - 6-7th Feb 2023 (via Zoom) - €695. I've revis… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 5 days ago
- The latest AWARE Weekly Update! paper.li/awareci?share_… Thanks to @The_Cyber_News @brownecfm @SK_Expert #strategy #business 6 days ago
- Another Dilbert cartoon on ChatGPT - this time with a different perspective and an important point for any form of… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
- The Biblical story told in the first chapters of Exodus is an interesting examination on leadership and the require… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
- I've made several posts on ChatGPT. Initially I was really impressed - but then I and several others saw weaknesses… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
- The latest AWARE Weekly Update! paper.li/awareci?share_… Thanks to @osintbear @DrProksch #strategy #business 1 week ago
- Our TrustPilot review on @CET_UK's emergency service. trustpilot.com/reviews/63bc5c… Be warned! 74% of reviews in last 30… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 weeks ago
- TOMORROW: SLA CIC's Webinar: "Gaining Market Insights from Events. How to Outmaneuver Your Competitors Using Event… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 weeks ago
- The latest AWARE Weekly Update! paper.li/awareci?share_… Thanks to @cavie_acci #strategy #business 2 weeks ago
Competitive Intelligence News
- Retailers Create New Growth Opportunities with Bungee Tech's ... - Digital Journal January 27, 2023Retailers Create New Growth Opportunities with Bungee Tech's ... Digital Journal
- Competitive Intelligence Tools Market Analysis by Size, Business ... - Digital Journal January 20, 2023Competitive Intelligence Tools Market Analysis by Size, Business ... Digital Journal
- Competitive Intelligence Software Market Strategies, Future Plans ... - Digital Journal January 16, 2023Competitive Intelligence Software Market Strategies, Future Plans ... Digital Journal
- Global Mobile Gaming Market Report 2022: Trends and ... - Business Wire January 5, 2023Global Mobile Gaming Market Report 2022: Trends and ... Business Wire
- Marketing Intelligence Software Market to Witness Steady Growth by ... - Digital Journal January 9, 2023Marketing Intelligence Software Market to Witness Steady Growth by ... Digital Journal
I do agree with all the ideas you’ve offered in your post. They’re really convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are very short for beginners. Could you please lengthen them a little from subsequent time? Thank you for the post.