"Passed" schools stay in closure-threat programme (From Bucks Free Press)

"Passed" schools stay in closure-threat programme

4:04pm Monday 1st December 2008 in Education By Oliver Evans

THREE south Buckinghamshire secondary schools have been kept in a controversial Government scheme which threatened closures – despite meeting its minimum standards.

The schools – which initially reacted with fury after being included in the National Challenge programme – have been told they will remain in the scheme because they are in “challenging contexts”.

This is despite the schools announcing in August that they had met the programme’s minimum standard, 30 per cent of GCSE pupils getting five A* to C grades, including English and Maths.

Yet heads of the schools, Highcrest and Cressex community schools in High Wycombe and Chesham Park Community College, said they would not fight their involvement as the Government was providing extra funding.

They said they were being kept in the scheme because the Government wanted to ensure they would continue to boost exam results.

And they insisted there was no risk of the schools closing and being taken over as suggested by the Government’s plans, announced by schools minister Ed Balls in June.

Councillor Marion Clayton, responsible for schools on Buckinghamshire County Council, the local education authority, said: “The 2008 results left Buckinghamshire with only two schools below the 30 per cent mark.

“However, a further six schools have stayed in the programme as National Challenge Focus Schools because it is recognised that these schools are in challenging contexts and they and the local authority are determined to sustain and build on recent progress.”

Cllr Clayton, cabinet member for achievement and learning, said schools wanted to remain in the programme “to gain access to necessary additional resources and improvement support”.

She said: “This will assist all these schools in improving outcomes for their most vulnerable pupils and raising achievement for all.”

Highcrest, in Hatters Lane, got 22 per cent in the key score last year – but this stood at 35 per cent after this year’s exams.

Headteacher Sheena Moynihan said: “What they are saying is, actually, we did so much better than we should do and they are worried that if something changes and we just did as we should do then the results would plummet.

”Therefore they want to continue to help us.”

She said the “negative publicity” around the announcement was bad for the school as it put some parents off sending their children there – but said she was pleased to be part of it as the Government was proving extra funding.

These would pay for two academic mentors for pupils who “just need that extra push”.

And Mrs Moynihan pledged attacked talk of closures over the school, which replaced the much maligned Hatters Lane School in 2005.

She said: “It would be over my dead body it would revert to Hatters Lane.”

Cressex head David Hood said the extra cash had paid for a new assistant headteacher, to start in January, and a advanced skills teacher and a support worker in the community.

The school went from 29 to 30 per cent for the key score this year.

He said: “It is a part of a national policy that the Government wants schools to sustain results of 30 per cent over a period of time.”

Schools were caught off their guard by the June announcement – and immediately hit out at the plans.

Mr Hood said today: “The bad thing about it initially was the way it was announced which was very clumsy and led to alarmist and negative headlines.

“I think everybody has calmed down a bit.”

The Department for Children Schools and Families set the “minimum 30 per cent standard”.

In its June announcement it said: “Where a school is completely unable to raise their exam results, the Government will encourage local authorities to close the school and replace it with a National Challenge Trust, providing that they forge new improvement partnerships led by a successful school and a business or university partner.”

Chesham Park Community College, in Chartridge Lane, will appoint an advanced skills teacher for maths, a data manager to “track” pupil progress, and an academic mentor with the cash.

Head Kevin Patrick, whose school is on 31 per cent, said: “This will help support some of the aspects of our college improvement plan a little bit earlier than we planned.”

Yet he said: “The National Challenge strategy, as I have said before, is a completely flawed strategy because it is a crude measure of defining high achieving schools or not.”

And he said of closure threats: “It doesn’t relate to us. It is so far off the radar it is untrue.”

A spokesman for the DCSF said: “National Challenge is about giving extra support for schools facing challenging circumstances.

“Therefore, even if someone has got over the 30 per cent, while that is great news, they may need support to continue to sustain improvement.”