Year of improvement for city schools (From Salisbury Journal)

Year of improvement for Southampton schools

2:42pm Thursday 26th January 2012 in Education By Jon Reeve, Education Reporter

Oasis Academy Mayfield pupils celebrate their results with principal John Toland.

WHAT a difference a year makes.

Oasis Academy Mayfield is leading the charge as league tables released today show Southampton’s schools are improving GCSE results at a faster rate than the national average.

The academy has had its huge leap in the proportion of pupils finishing with top grades verified by statistics from the Department for Education, confirming its dramatic recovery from being labelled as one of the worst-performing schools in the country in last year’s figures.

Its proportion of pupils gaining five or more highgrade GCSEs almost doubled to 78 per cent, while there were also significant improvements in maths and English results, and the number achieving qualifications overall.

Delighted principal John Toland said the news comes at an excellent time, just a month before pupils move into the academy’s new building.

He said: “It’s a great position to be in, and I think going into the new build as well with the early entry results for this year showing very positive indications, it will cement all of that, and the past three years will actually be in the past.”

With Mayfield’s success mirrored across Southampton, the city has continued its progress up the national league tables based on youngsters achieving the Government’s benchmark of five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C, including maths and English.

But despite its faster-thanaverage improvement, recording a 4.2 percentage point increase in its figures compared with the overall national rise of three percentage points, it has only moved up the table by three places.

Hampshire schools also recorded a 1.9 percentage point better rate than in 2010, keeping them well above the English average, but the county council has slid slightly in the authority league tables to 41st, from 37th.

Figures based on the number of 16-year-olds getting at least five high passes in any subjects show Southampton has now overtaken the county.

The city saw 77.7 per cent of youngsters leave with the good grades – a nine percentage point jump on 2010 – compared to 74.7 per cent of county teens, itself a 2.7 percentage point increase.

Southampton’s schools boss Cllr Jeremy Moulton said the results, along with improving figures in primary schools and at A-level, are hugely encouraging for the city.

He said: “This will reassure parents that education in the city is improving across the board and will provide the city’s children and young people with the opportunities they need and deserve.

“We’re not complacent and there is still work to do, but these results move us closer to achieving our goals.”

A number of our individual schools have made it into national league tables for their performance in 2011.

Thornden School in Chandler’s Ford is among the country’s elite-performing state schools, after it was named in the top 200 nationally based on the proportion of pupils achieving five or more A* to C grades, including maths and English.

Independent schools King Edward VI in Southampton, St Swithun’s School near Winchester, and Winchester College were all in the 200 best-performing English schools, according to the same measure.

King Edward’s was also one of the highest-performing schools nationally when ranked by the Government’s controversial new English Baccalaureate, which looks at pupils who have high grades in English, maths, science, a foreign language and either history or geography.

Critics argue it is unfair to judge schools on the EBacc, because youngsters taking their GCSEs last summer had chosen their subjects before the Education Secretary announced it was something he wanted to be compared on and doesn’t take into account that some pupils are better suited to more vocational learning.

Neville Lovett Community School in Fareham and The Mountbatten School in Romsey were also named as among the 200 most-improved schools in England, based on consistently rising grades since 2008.

Elsewhere, three of the region’s schools have found themselves in the unwanted position of being in the list of the 200 English schools recording the lowest proportion of pupils achieving the benchmark five or more high passes including the two core subjects.

Southampton’s Chamberlayne College for the Arts and Woodlands Community College, as well as Bridgemary School in Gosport are all in the table, although both Southampton schools actually saw their pass rates improve in 2011.

And two Hampshire schools – Hardley School and Sixth Form in Holbury and Quilley School of Engineering in Eastleigh – are among the 100 schools nationally that recorded the lowest “value added” scores, which measure progress made over the five years of secondary level education.

Hampshire’s education chief, Cllr Roy Perry, said he was very pleased with the results, especially those based on high passes including maths and English.

But as well as congratulating staff and pupils, he promised schools would be supported where results are not as good as hoped.

He said: “School improvement is one of our key objectives and we seek to help all schools improve the results for their pupils through our school improvement service and indeed we are already working with schools which have not achieved expected results.

“I am pleased Hampshire schools achieve above average but I want to see it higher still.”