Six Kirklees schools have fallen through the Government’s floor standards for GCSE results - but their head teachers have hit back.
The schools are Thornhill Community Academy Trust, North Huddersfield Trust School, Almondbury Community School, Royds Hall Community School
Manor Croft Academy and Batley Business and Enterprise College.
This is in line with the national picture where the number of schools failing to reach the target of 40% of pupils getting five A* to C grades, including English and Maths, has doubled.
GCSE results across the board have gone down in England, following a change in the criteria. The Government excluded resit results and some vocational qualifications from the league tables, and shifted the emphasis away from course work to exams.
A major criticism is that this was done after students had already embarked on exam courses.
Schools were given very short notice, just before November GCSEs, that only first exam results would count. Some Huddersfield schools continued, knowing that November results would drag down their overall results, while others felt forced to cancel these exams at the last minute, again with a detrimental effect.
The league tables also take no account of children’s starting points when they arrive at secondary school -and in the case of the three Huddersfield schools, all have a higher than average percentage of disadvantaged pupils.
While only 17% of Thornhill Academy students achieved the benchmark, Royds Hall fell just short at 38%, Almondbury was at 37% and North Huddersfield at 32%.
The current system is due to be abolished next year in favour of a new system called Best 8, which will measure individual student improvement across a broad range of subjects.
The Huddersfield headteachers are fiercely proud of their schools and, contrary to the latest figures, the improving achievement of their pupils. They claim that the league tables are not a fair picture of what is actually going on in their schools.
North Huddersfield Trust School’s executive headteacher Dr Andy Williams summed up the feeling of the three leaders of the Huddersfield schools: “It is not a level playing field; children’s additional needs are not taken into consideration.
“We are neither complacent about this nor worried. The way league tables are put together is very limited and does not explain the proper picture of schools.
“The reality is that in the vast majority of subjects our pupils have made more progress than their counterparts nationally. Government data shows this to be the case, but this is not reflected in the league table positions.”
For example, at the old Fartown High School, which closed in 2011, only 16% of pupils made the expected progress in maths. This compares with over 60% at North Huddersfield three years later. And for 44% of the school’s GCSE pupils, English was their a second language.
Dr Williams added: “We are on track and would like to thank the local community, and Trust partners for all the fantastic support they have given the school. We know there is a lot of work still to be done, but we are not afraid of hard work!”
His counterpart at Royds Hall Community School, Melanie Williams, echoed this view and said the Government was constantly “shifting the goalposts.”
She said: “Staff feel very strongly that the basic headline figures in no way reflect the progress and achievement of their students.
“This year’s results stem from volatility in grading and random mid-year changes imposed by the Department of Education and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA).
“Already branded a ‘nonsense’ by headteachers of all sectors, the current measures are not a fair indication of progress due to mid-year changes to grade boundaries and the arbitrary removal of courses such as GCSE in in PE and ICT from the list of approved examination syllabuses, which no longer counted in the published figures, despite students having achieved very good grades.
“Our attendance is the second highest in the authority - after Heckmondwike Grammar - and we remain a very popular and over-subscribed school.
“We will continue to focus on providing a broad and balanced curriculum which meet the needs of every student and are confident that current students are on target to achieve excellent results in August 2015.”
Almondbury Community School headteacher Trevor Bowen also blamed the Government’s last-minute tinkering with the criteria for this year’s poor results.
He said he fully expected this summer’s GCSE results to be back on track, pointing out that it was less than five months since the school was deemed to be the most improved in Kirklees.
He added: “The national changes in English GCSE -no longer taking speaking and listening into account - has had a significant effect on our results.
That, along with withdrawing students from November exams a few days beforehand and the stiffening of exams have all led to results lower than predicted. Al lthese changes have occurred mid-cycle and it has been very unfair on our children.
“My concern is that this performance data is unreliable and sends messages to parents that our pupils are underachieving, which is not a true reflection.
“There are some very exciting things happening here and we fully expect to return to better results this summer.”
