HC Deb 09 November 1984 vol 67 c9W
Mr. Sean Hughes

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of the population aged three years or over but under five years was receiving full or part-time education at the beginning of the present school year; and how this compares with each of the last five years.

Mr. Dunn

Information for the current school year is not yet available. The percentage of children aged three and four years of age receiving full-time or part-time education in maintained schools in England in the years 1979 to 1984 were:

January per cent.
1979 37
1980 37
1981 38
1982 38
1983 38
1984 40

The figures above are the numbers of pupils in schools aged three and four years at the preceding August expressed as a percentage of the total number of three and four-year-olds in the population. The figures exclude children who were four years old at the preceding August but who became five before the census day in the following January.