Trailblazing schools introduce new benchmarks a year early

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Appleby Grammar School in Appleby, Solway School in Silloth, and Aspatria’s Beacon Hill School are three of the four county schools helping to introduce reforms to secondary league tables this year.

They are among 327 secondary schools across England which have chosen to introduce the new Progress 8 measure a year earlier than other schools as the latest league tables are published by the Government.

Progress 8 aims to capture the progress a pupil makes during their time at secondary school across eight different subjects, taking into account their backgrounds and starting points.

It is expected to replace the measure currently recognised as the benchmark of academic success – the percentage of pupils who gain at least five GCSE A*-C grades including the core subjects of English and maths.

It is part of wider reforms to exams that are being introduced.

Andrew Lund, headteacher of Appleby Grammar School, said: “Progress 8 better reflects performance of students across the curriculum in academic subject areas. As our curriculum already had an academic focus, not only on English and maths but also the sciences, languages and humanities, reflecting our ethos, we felt confident to opt into this new national measure a year early.”

Danny Gee Danny Gee, deputy headteacher of Beacon Hill School in Aspatria, said: “We are happy that the key measure of performance now focuses primarily on progress in both English and maths as this is a much fairer measure of achievement and something in which our pupils and school have excelled in recent years with progress rates well above national averages in both subjects, and significantly higher than many local schools.

“We are particularly proud of the progress of our middle ability learners who outperformed local authority averages for similar ability pupils by 20 per cent in English and 25 per cent in maths.

“Our higher ability pupils continue to enjoy outstanding success and we are disappointed that this date has been suppressed due to our small cohort size - though last year 100 per cent of higher ability pupils achieved five A*-C including English and maths.”

The Department of Education (DfE) published its latest set of GCSE and post-16 league tables for all English schools yesterday.

Headteachers in Cumbria are once again warning parents that they do not give a true reflection of a school’s success.

Derek Kay Derek Kay, co-headteacher at Trinity School in Carlisle, said: “The results published do not reflect the actual GCSE results our students took home with them.

“An example is the key measure of five or more GCSEs at C or above including English and maths. The tables show 56 per cent as our figure which is equal to the national figure. However, when you add in the re-sit and remarks we achieved 62 per cent on this measure which is significantly above the national average, an increase from 59 per cent last year.”

Chris McAree Chris McAree, headteacher at Caldew School in Dalston, added: “It is always important not to focus on threshold measures as these depend so much on the nature of a school’s intake which can vary from year to year and certainly by catchment area or indeed selection on entry.”

Austin Friars School in Carlisle appears at the bottom of some of the figures because many of the exams its pupils sit are not included in the DfE data.

Matt Harris, headteacher of the Etterby Scaur school, said: “In common with most independent schools, Austin Friars’ pupils take IGCSE courses in English, Mathematics, Sciences, French and several other subjects.

“While the universities recognise the standing of the IGCSE as a qualification, the DfE does not include these in their data.

“Consequently, the Key Stage 4 entry for Austin Friars is at best meaningless and indeed could be considered misleading in terms of the high academic performance achieved by our pupils.”

For some, yesterday’s new GCSE and post-16 tables reflect improvements being made.

They include the Richard Rose Academies in Carlisle, which have recorded some of the country’s lowest figures in previous years.

Derek Davies Derek Davies, executive principal of the Central and Morton Academies for academy group United Learning, said: “We are greatly encouraged by our positions in this year’s tables which demonstrate that strong and sustainable progress is underway at both academies.

“At Morton, the number of students gaining five good GCSEs has improved by 13 percentage points whilst at Central these results have increased by 10 percentage points in just one year.

“Staff across both schools have worked incredibly hard to raise standards and these strong results are testament to their steadfast determination to provide students with a high-quality education.”

The Government believes its academies programme is helping to tackle underperformance in schools.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said: “Our academies programme is revolutionising the school system, with converter academies leading the way and sponsored academies turning round schools which previously would have been left to languish.

“Our reforms to GCSEs and A-levels are based on the highest possible aspirations for our young people – providing a broad and balanced education and equipping them with the knowledge, skills and qualifications which will set them up to succeed.”

Ministers also want to establish a National Teaching Service to send 1,500 of the best teachers and school leaders into some of the most challenging areas by 2020 as part of the government’s reforms to raise school standards.