Vital summit meeting to save ‘failing’ schools

Apr 26 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

EDUCATION leaders will be invited to a crunch Whitehall summit to head off a draconian threat to axe dozens of “failing” Merseyside secondary schools.

Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, will bring together council officials, leading councillors and education experts to explore drastic changes that could rapidly improve results.

Mr Balls is targeting 638 secondaries across England which fall short of a benchmark of 30% of pupils achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and maths.

Last year, Gordon Brown warned that any school failing that test in just three years would be shut down or taken over by another school.

The 638 include no fewer than 36 in Merseyside and North Cheshire, including in Liverpool (11), Wirral (6), Knowsley (5), Sefton (5), Halton (3), St Helens (2), Cheshire (2) and Warrington (2).

The worst results were at Parklands High, in Speke, where just 1% of pupils achieved five good A*-C grades, followed by Croxteth Community Comprehensive (7%) and Ruffwood School, in Kirkby (11%).

Now the summit, pencilled in for June, will urge Merseyside’s education authorities to investigate possible routes to rapid improvement, including:

“Intensive support” – such as “buying in” expert help in English, maths, or behaviour.

Direct partnership with a better performing school.

A federation – where a strong school is funded to help a weaker one develop a “culture of excellence”.

A trust – pairing with a business, or charity, giving it powers to appoint staff and set admissions policy.

An academy – where a firm, university or charity directly sponsors the school, providing a slice of the start-up cost.

A £200m pot was set aside in last month’s Budget to raise standards in struggling secondary schools.

At the same time, local authorities were told to put together an action plan for each low-attaining school, to be handed to Mr Balls by the summer.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Secretary is prepared to double the pay of heads from top state schools who agree to also manage struggling secondaries nearby.

Speaking to the Liverpool Daily Post, Mr Balls said he did not describe all 638 schools as “failing”, because around one-third were making good progress towards the benchmark.

But he added: “About two-thirds of the 638 have been below 30% for some time and are not making the progress we would like.

“They need more intensive efforts over the next two or three years to get above the threshold, so we will be inviting all directors of children’s services and councillors responsible for education to meet with us in June.”

The initiative – called the National Challenge programme – is modelled on the London Challenge, which helped hike GCSE results in the capital by 10% in just four years.

The figure of 638 schools below the 30% benchmark is already a dramatic improvement on the picture when Labour came to power in 1997, when there were 1,610.