As regular readers will know (as will anyone who has ever met me!) I am a bit of a stats anorak. It's a bad habit and I've tried to kick it, but once in a while I break my own rule and indulge in a bit of gobbledegook and management consultant speak.  This post is going to be one of those times. 

The above picture is an artist's impression of the new Forge Valley school which is being built in Stannington / Malin Bridge. This is the latest in a long line of refurbishments and new builds in Hallam. In living memory, Sheffield has not seen so much investment or so many new buildings in education.

It is worth reminding ourselves that this new school (which has just received planning permission) would not have been built if the Lib Dems had their way. The played a very petty political game with all our childrens' futures.  

Sheffield Hallam has some of the best primary and secondary schools in the country. This isn't necessarily new: Hallam has always had good schools. The difference is the sheer frequency of outstanding performance.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has introduced a new tool, called "In Your Area", which allows you to see how different measures have changed in your ward or constituency. It's well worth a quick look. I have pulled out some of the most striking information:

• In 1997, 76% of 11 year-olds achieved Level 4 in their SATs. In 2008, 91% achieved this standard.
• In 1997, 59% of students gained 5 A*- C grade GCSEs. In 2008, 69% achieved this level. Across Sheffield, there has been a 19% increase in the number of students who achieve this level.
• Perhaps most impressive is the unprecedented increase in teaching assistants: In 1997, there were just 60 Teaching Assistants in Hallam's schools. In 2008, there were 280. That's 220 extra Teaching Assistants just in one constituency. That's a 367% increase! There are an extra 1300 Teaching Assistants across Sheffield. 
• In 1997, the average salary for a full-time, regular, qualified Sheffield teacher was £23,440. It is now £33,310. So average teacher pay in Sheffield has risen by £9870. That is a pay rise of 40%. No wonder that even before the recession, we had more people than ever applying to be teachers and more people staying in the profession. 
• In 1997, the Government invested just £1200 in addressing each Sheffield child's IT needs. Recently, that has increased to £5229 per child, per year, local enabling children to have opportunities and access to technology that was never imagined possible a few years ago. 

Thanks for sticking with me through the stats - I won't do it too often. There is far more to education than numbers and percentages, which I will blog about in due course.

But for the moment, I just wanted to reiterate that these unimaginable improvements didn't just happen or fall from the sky. They didn't happen before we had a Labour government and they wouldn't have happened without one. They happened, at least in some part, because we have a Labour Government committed to education and resourcing it properly.