PARENTS sending their children to primary schools in York, North and East Yorkshire are getting a lower standard of education than those in Darlington and Middlesbrough, according to Ofsted.

Information published by the schools inspectorate for primary schools, including academies shows, the percentage of pupils at good or outstanding schools in York is 76 per cent, below the top ranked authority in the country, Darlington, which has 97 per cent, and also below Middlesbrough, which came in 60th place with 81 per cent.

York’s neighbours, North Yorkshire and East Riding Council have 74 per cent and 67 per cent of their schools respectively rated as good or outstanding, meaning that York ranked 91st, North Yorkshire 105th and East Yorkshire 135th out of the 150 local authorities in England.

The findings were published as part of Ofsted’s annual report on education standards, which also criticised the standards of secondary education in some local authorities. It showed when it comes to secondary education 91 per cent of York secondaries are ranked good or outstanding, putting it at 19th in the country, compared with 74 per cent in North Yorkshire and only 38 per cent in East Yorkshire, which ranked 77th and 146th respectively.

The report showed pupils in 11 of the region’s 27 local authority areas exceeded the national level in their GCSE examinations against the national benchmark, including English and maths in 2012, with North Yorkshire and York among the strongest performers.

Coun Janet Looker, City of York Council’s cabinet member for education, said: “It is recognised that the current Ofsted framework is the most rigorous one yet, which is right, and the council is working with schools to ensure that standards continue to rise. It is encouraging to see that 76 per cent of children in York are already attending ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ primary schools, with 21 per cent of the city’s primary schools rated as outstanding which continues to be above the regional average of 15 per cent and the national average of 18 per cent.”

Pete Dwyer, director of children’s services in North Yorkshire, said: “An increasing percentage of children across North Yorkshire have access to good or better schools in our county and one of the key policies of the children’s service is that all children in our county will have access to good or better schools.

“We acknowledge therefore that we have work to do. To that end we set up a commission for school improvement which will be reporting back to members and the wider school community in January 2014.”

Mike Furbank, East Riding of Yorkshire’s head of schools, said: “We have set all our schools a target of achieving good or outstanding status within the next three years, and have taken significant action to achieve this. This is recognised in the inspector’s report, which says the council has responded swiftly to a focused inspection.”