HERE the Minister for School Standards, Nick Gibb, praises City of York Council on the number of children it placed in their first choice primary school.

Monday was one of the most important days in the education calendar, as thousands of parents in York found out which primary school has offered a place to their child.

Starting school is a significant moment and we know how much yesterday mattered to pupils and parents.

So it is encouraging that last year the proportion of pupils getting a place at their first choice school remained high across the country, with well over four in five first choice applications resulting in an offer, and in York nine out of ten parents received an offer from one of their top three preferences.

This follows the creation of 825,000 new good school places across the country since 2010 – with 90,000 more between 2016 and 2017 alone.

We will continue to build on this by investing £5.8billion to create even more good school places, because we are determined to give parents choice when it comes to their child’s education.

Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, academic standards are rising across England – with around 1.9 million more pupils in in schools rated good or outstanding than in 2010 and nine out of ten of schools given this rating at their last inspection.

To build on this, we’ve implemented a more rigorous, knowledge-rich curriculum so children receive the education they need to go on to future success at secondary school and beyond.

On top of this we are investing in programmes to help raise standards in these crucial early years of education, funding specialist English Hubs around the country to improve pupils’ literacy and using the same approach to teach maths as world leading countries through our Shanghai Mastery for Maths programme. ?

And we have made wider changes to the primary assessment system which will reduce unnecessary workload for teachers so they can focus on what really matters in the classroom.

This includes introducing measures to monitor the progress pupils make throughout primary school, such as a new multiplication tables check to help pupils to solve problems quickly and flexibly, and allow them to go on to tackle more complex mathematics. ?

The introduction of the multiplication check follows the successful introduction of the phonics screening check in 2012.

There are now 154,000 more six-year-olds on track to become fluent readers and England’s recent rise up the international PIRLS rankings helped put the success of the government’s reforms on a global scale.

Our ambition is that every child has the opportunity to make the most of their lives, wherever they are growing up.

A good primary education lays the foundations for success at secondary school and beyond, so it is right that we help make sure every child reaches their potential from the moment they start school.

I wish all those pupils allocated a place on Monday in York the best of luck.