Axe hangs over 40 schools with poor results

At least 40 schools are threatened with closure after failing to achieve GCSE targets, a survey by The Independent of last year's poorest performing schools has found.

Under ministers' "three strikes and you're out" policy, schools where fewer than 15 per cent of students achieve five good GCSEs for three successive years starting this summer will be considered for closure in 2003.

Last autumn 101 comprehensive and secondary modern schools were shown by the official performance tables to have failed to reach the 15 per cent "floor" set last March. Despite extra funding and government support, 40 of these were still below 15 per cent this summer, the first year to count towards the target. All but 10 of the 101 made at least a small improvement towards the target this year. Seven schools saw their results fall even further, while three made no progress.

Almost half (48) of the threatened schools showed enough improvement to clear the 15 per cent hurdle. Their improved performance will save them from closure whatever their results in the next two years.

Ten of the 101 schools refused to provide their results, and a further three have closed.

The complete list of schools threatened with closure will not be known until publication of the official performance tables next month. It will include schools with previously good results whose scores dropped below 15 per cent for the first time this year.

Headteachers argue that setting targets is the wrong way to judge struggling schools and has made raising standards more difficult in the schools with the poorest results.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: "Only giving credit for pupils with five A*-C grades is completely inappropriate for these schools. The Government needs to get the right balance between pressure and support. These schools need more support and less pressure." Andrew Hobbs, headteacher of Copperfields College in Leeds, where 4.4 per cent of pupils gained five good passes, compared to 4 per cent last year, said that threatening the struggling schools' futures only pushed parents to take their children elsewhere.