§ Mrs. LaingTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many primary schools in England and Wales have reception classes for children aged under four years; and what percentage this is of the total number of primary schools. [48218]
§ Margaret Hodge[holding answer 9 April 2002]: Information is not collected on the age of pupils within classes, however we do collect information on the number of pupils by age by school.
There are 18,069 maintained primary schools in England. Within these 11,844 (65.5 per cent.) have one or more reception classes.
For information on Welsh primary schools I refer the hon. Member to the National Assembly for Wales.