Is it enough? Looked at another way, that means that more than one in five children have spent six or seven years in primary school without learning to read and write properly.And teachers complain about the creativity of the primary years being lost to an obsession with testing and league tables. Last summer's GCSE results were published with a new emphasis on the basics - measured in terms of how many pupils achieved the equivalent of five good GCSEs including English and maths.is showed that only 45.1% of pupils were ending compulsory education with these qualifications - up from 35.6% in 1997, although part of the change is that a much wider range of qualifications is now included among the "good GCSEs". Throughout the Blair years, there has been a constant debate over whether exam and test results are really an objective indication of higher standards. Can A-level results really improve year after year? As the Blair years progressed, the structures of education - how schools were organised and managed - became an increasingly important target, particularly as attention shifted from primary to secondary school