Head defends schools progress in new pilot

A Boston head teacher has defended his school in light of the Government's performance tables released yesterday (Thursday).
Haven High College head teacher Adrian Reed. ENGEMN00120131101173444Haven High College head teacher Adrian Reed. ENGEMN00120131101173444
Haven High College head teacher Adrian Reed. ENGEMN00120131101173444

Only 27 per cent of pupils at Haven High Technology College achieved an A*-C grade GCSE including English and Maths 2015, the Department for Education’s latest statistics said - up from 24 per cent in 2014.

The national figure for all schools was 53.8 per cent.

However, Adrian Reed, the executive head teacher of Boston Witham Academies Federation, which oversees the school, said that under new pilot scheme the school had ‘only just missed out’ on the Government target.

Under the Progress 8 pilot, which looks at pupils progress across eight subjects rather than just English and Maths.

Under this heading, Haven High achieved a score of -0.53, just three hundredths off the Government target of -0.5.

Mr Reed said: “We are disappointed to have missed the target, but as we move forward it will be a much fairer measure, especially as more and more children work their way through our schools.”

He argued that, with the current ‘selective system’ secondary modern schools ‘are always going to struggle to hit national targets based on a Comprehensive system’ - and said the new pilot, which compares pupils with similar achievements to themselves, would be fairer.

He added that 13 per cent of his pupils, some 30 children, were also disadvantaged because, due to them coming into the country recently, they had no Key Stage education statistics to be measured against.

Under the Progress 8 statistics Boston High School achieved a score of 0.27, while Giles Academy achieved -0.34.

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