North Chadderton hits new GCSE heights
Reporter: Karen Doherty
Date published: 26 January 2012
NORTH Chadderton School has chalked up Oldham’s biggest jump in GCSE results.
It is celebrating after 67 per cent of pupils gained the gold standard of at least five A* to C grades last year, including English and maths.
This is up from 51 per cent in 2010 and head teacher Joy Clark said: “It’s a 16 per cent increase. We are absolutely thrilled by the work of the staff and the aspirations of the students to achieve these results.
“They provide a superb platform for every student at the school to hopefully be the best they can be, and go on and build on these qualifications.
“We have beaten all of our targets, and beaten them comprehensively.”
She took over as head in September and added: “The school has faced some testing times and I came in on the back of success because A-level results were also up.
“I felt we had a good, sound platform to move the school. forward.”
The second greatest improver was Saddleworth School, up from 60 per cent to 73 per cent.
Overall, Oldham is ranked 106th out of 151 local authorities for its results.
The results are up in Oldham from 51.9 per cent to 56.1 per cent, mirroring the national increase from 53.5 per cent to 58.9 per cent.
Hulme Grammar School — which last year said its results were wrong — tops Oldham’s GCSE league table. Nearly all (98 per cent) of pupils gained at least five top grades, including English and maths.
The best state schools in the borough are Crompton House (80 per cent), Blue Coat (77 per cent), Saddleworth and North Chadderton.
The top five schools also had the highest number of pupils achieving the English Baccalaureate, meaning they got a C or above in each of English, maths, science, a foreign language and history of geography.
Hathershaw has the borough’s highest value added score which measures pupils’ progress throughout high school.
St Augustine’s School went out on a high after merging with Our Lady’s in September to create Newman College. It was 30th among the country’s top 200 most improved schools after bettering its results every year since 2008 — the Government’s measure of improvement. They jumped from 21 per cent to 52 per cent.
BLUE COAT School has one of the country’s best sixth-forms. It is ranked in the top 40 state schools for the average points scored by pupils in their A-levels.
The full league table is available in tonight’s paper Chronicle edition and eChron
