Five-star pupils

ALL smiles . . . (from left) John Alder (head teacher), Chris Kershaw, Katie Ashton, Tim Roberts, Amber Taylor, Stacey Gowers and Kayleigh Bourne

MORE Oldham pupils left school last year with five good GCSEs, including English and maths, official figures show today.

And some schools are celebrating after seeing their results shoot up.

But nearly 57 per cent of students still fell short of the Government’s gold standard of five A* to C grades, including the two core subjects.

And five of the borough’s schools failed to ensure that 30 per cent of its students made this grade last year: Breeze Hill, Counthill, Grange, Hathershaw and St Augustine’s. Ministers announced last June that they wanted no school to be in this position by 2011.

Oldham is ranked 107th out of 150 local education authorities, up two places.

The league tables show 43.1 per cent of the borough’s 3,191 teenagers gained at least five A* to C grades, including English and maths, last summer. This is up from 40.6 per cent in 2007 and compares with 47.6 per cent in England.

However, 64.2 per cent of Oldham pupils gained at least five C passes in any subject (65.3 per cent nationally) up from 59.5 per cent.

Kaskenmoor School is celebrating after its five A* to C pass rate shot up from 16 per cent in 2005 to 50 per cent last year. Its figure including English and maths has also jumped massively from 11 per cent to 30 per cent.

Delighted head teacher John Alder said the school had done a lot of work to increase pupils’ aspirations, make teaching more engaging and improve the school environment.

He added: “We are really pleased with the results. We have done a radical overhaul of the curriculum at key stage 4 so pupils are studying subjects they are much more interested in. That means they are attending more and doing better in their English and maths.

“We think this is just the start and are predicting another jump in the summer to come.”

Grange and Saddleworth are among the country’s top 200 state secondaries for sustained year-on-year improvement in their five A* to C rate, including English and maths.

But St Augustine’s is ranked among the bottom 200 for both last year’s results and pupil progress, and Counthill for persistent absence.

Councillor Kay Knox, Oldham’s cabinet member for children, young people and families, said: “The latest round of GCSE results show a steady increase in overall attainment, continuing our recent trend, which is good news.

“Within the overall figures there are some pleasing individual success stories, but there are also some results that are disappointing.

“Oldham Council is very clear on what it needs to do to continue to improve attainment and opportunities for our young people and working with schools will continue to make it a high priority to ensure that all our young people are equipped to take up the best possible opportunities for their future.”

Schools secretary Ed Balls said the Government was on target to see no school falling under the 30 per cent threshold by 2011.

He added: “We now need to continue to concentrate on the remaining schools and ensure we are giving them the support and challenge they need to make sure no child is left behind.

“This is no time for excuses — I want every child to go to a good school and that means every school getting above 30 per cent.”

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, the UK’s largest teachers’ union, said the results represented huge achievements.

But she added: “Despite this evident success I have no doubt the doomsayers will rush to the fore to seek to turn this into a focus on failure.

“It is disgraceful that some schools will be labelled as failing simply because they have not yet met, for a variety of reasons, a set of arbitrary numerical targets.”




Tables don’t tell the full story



A-LEVEL league tables should be overhauled to highlight schools and colleges which are coasting.



That is the view of Oldham Sixth Form College principal Nick Brown who said he did not take a “huge amount of notice” of the figures.

They include two sets of measures for A-levels and equivalent vocational qualifications: the average point score per student and the point score per exam entry.

Hulme Grammar School for Girls tops the table for both today. But Mr Brown wants the tables to compare like with like, such as how well institutions do with B grade pupils.

He explained: “We take the sort of students other places won’t because they are playing the league table game.

“I think there should be league tables but they should differentiate between the schools that only take good children and get good results, which is very easy to do, and those that do a harder job.

“You could do it so you look at groups of students within a certain range then you would be able to compare Oldham Sixth Form College with Manchester Grammar. That would be very revealing. You would be able to see places that did a very good job and those that were just coasting.”

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