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Sir Michael Wilshaw last night condemned the fact that some children to reach the national average in English Sats for 11 years. Today, his office admits was a "slip" - the average is a mathematical calculation rather than a "target". But what we are told of his error on the satellite system?

Polly Curtis

, with your help, to discover. Contact below the line, tweet or email @ pollycurtis polly.curtis @ guardian.co.uk.

Last night on the BBC, Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools and the head of Ofsted, has condemned the fact that one in five children leave primary school without achieve "national average" in English. His comments led to charges on Twitter that was "statistically inconsistent", including the @ Bickerrecord:

Ofsted Chief

# Newsnight "one to five children leave primary school without reaching the national average." Ofsted chief needs a lesson in basic statistics

sundersays, director of Future UK, Twitter asks:

u may know why you use "1 in 5 fail-average" (arithmetic / idiot) rather than, for example, are not "fundamental rule"

This is what he said on Newsnight Sir Michael:

Our standards should be higher. What effect is the middle of something like one in five children in primary schools at the age of 11 years leave primary school without the national average. What that really means is that they can access the curriculum in high school, difficulty passing exams, difficulty in switching to the next stage of their education and training, and of course hard to find a job.

course, it is surprising that some children were on average: some children will inevitably lower than average, because support is just a measure of the more typical for children. Is statistically inconsistent to condemn a system for some children who do not meet the national average. To repeat, some children will always fail to average.

Chief Inspector comments are based on this report by Ofsted, which clearly indicates that what is actually referring to "expectations" or national destination. It reads:

standards in English at the end of Key Stage 2 have not increased since the last report. While four-fifths of the Key Stage 2 pupils achieved national expectations in the last three years, one in five primary school students have not reached the expected level in English.

In the phone right now, the press service of Ofsted recognized that the reference to the average Wilshaw was just a

"slip"

and language in the report is correct.

But it is a good saying. There has always been a confusion between means and ends. The current target for the primary is that 85% of children should have two levels of progress between two and six in English. Last year, 82% have a level four in English and 29% have a level five.

I asked

Warwick Mansell, author of Education by numbers, a review of the satellite system, why there was a close relationship between the average and the expected level. He said:

What happens is that, in 1988, when they were considering the introduction of the satellites was a table in the report that created the levels found that half the level four is the median . This is an expectation - this is what we expect of a child to achieve. Politicians who was adopted as a goal and moved to a minimum expectation. It is impossible to think that something that was originally created as a means, should become a minimum. If 80% are hit, then the average yield is above the threshold level. Lens shift is higher than average to say that we can not accept what was half as good now, because of improvements in the results.

This is the report referred to Warwick, the Working Group on Evaluation and Testing (pdf), chaired by Professor Paul Black. This is the table that predicts the average results:

Sir Michael recommends that the bar should be raised to require that a growing number of children to achieve the average four or expects that this level altogether. In each level there are three categories A, B and C. It was argued that schools should be provided for children at higher A instead of C because it is much evidence that this level four because they are correlated with good GCSE level and four Cs do not. Reality check here watched this earlier. Today, Sir Michael said:

What do you think? Is it fair to raise the bar? Contact below the line, I Tweet @ pollycurtis or email polly.curtis @ guardian.co.uk.

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