JUST six out of ten primary school children in Dorset reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths this summer.

Youngsters across the county council area fell short of the bar set by the government.

The council area saw 60 per cent of pupils making the grade with Poole just one per cent higher and Bournemouth at 67 per cent.

The national average is 64 per cent.

Statistics released by the Department for Education give individual reports for all primary schools with many falling under the floor standard.

Turlin Moor Community School in Poole saw just 27 per cent of pupils reach the expected standard and Branksome Heath had only 38 per cent.

Talbot Primary School recorded a figure of 43 per cent and St Joseph’s Catholic Primary school had 54 per cent.

At the other end of scale, Heatherlands School had 81 per cent and Baden Powell and St Peter’s recorded a figure of 79 per cent.

In Bournemouth Heathlands Primary had 38 per cent with Kinson Primary at 47 per cent and Pokesdown Community Primary at 50 per cent.

The top performing school in Bournemouth was Moordown St John’s at 93 per cent and Winton Primary had a figure of 86 per cent.

In Dorset Lulworth and Winfrith had 46 per cent. The top-performing school in the county was St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Marnhull.

A spokesman for Dorset County Council (DCC) said improving the county’s primary performance was now a “priority”.

“The local authority will continue to work with maintained schools to drive up the standards at KS2 for reading, writing and maths.

“The results at KS1 and KS4 have shown encouraging improvement in the last twelve months and we now want to see the same at KS2. This will also be a priority for the newly formed Dorset School Improvement Board,” the spokesman said.

She said the current focus is to improve maths and stressed the council is committed to see standards rise.