England rises up the Pisa rankings

England has moved up the Pisa rankings thanks to an improvement in maths and a small rise for reading.

Pisa compares the results from 600,000 15-year-olds taking tests across 79 countries.

England ranked 17th, up from 26th in 2015.

In maths, England achieved an average score of 504, up 11 points from the previous Pisa in 2015.

Reading also rose five points to 505, which puts the country in a joint 13th position – higher than the 17th position it held in 2015.

Science however has continued to drop – England achieved a score of 516 in 2012, 512 in 2014 and in 2018 the figure fell to 507. Its comparative rank in the subject, however, has gone up one place to joint 13th, perhaps due to the fact that other high-performing countries have also slipped down in their science scores.