People in primary teaching jobs may be able to take heart in knowing that their hard work is being reflected in the latest Sats results.

New figures show more 11-year-olds are reaching the levels expected in maths and writing, with 76 per cent of pupils attaining the government's level 4 standard.

However, there is still room for improvement with one in four junior students not making the grade for each of England's Sats tests, while this year there was also a slight drop in the number of top grades awarded in the reading test. 

Education minister Elizabeth Truss said the statistics show the majority of children at primary school are performing well and they - in conjunction with their teachers and parents - should be congratulated for their achievements.

She added: "However, the statistics also reveal that one in four children is leaving primary school without a firm grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar. The new test encourages schools to focus on these basics."

The test Ms Truss was talking about was the first of its kind, so results have no standard for comparison, but 74 per cent of pupils taking the spelling, punctuation and grammar test attained level 4.

Questions included asking pupils to insert missing elements of punctuation and capital letters in sentences, while they also needed to identify adverbs and different tenses.

Spelling tasks asked children to correctly spell words such as familiar, physically, surprised, enough, strength and substantial.

Throughout England, 139,000 11-year-olds failed to reach the Department of Education's required standard.

Labour MP Stephen Twigg, shadow education secretary, accused the coalition government of "undermining a decade of progress" in literacy skills in primary schools.

So, as a teacher do you think that these figures point to a successful year? Are ministers just using them to score political points, or is there room for improvement on a much greater scale than the slight advancements recorded over the past 12 months?