Action plan to save failing school (From This Is Local London)

Action plan to save failing school

9:00am Friday 23rd January 2009 in Where I Live

An action plan to rescue a failing Haringey school has been agreed with the Government.

Woodside High School in Wood Green failed to meet national targets of 30 per cent of pupils obtaining five A-C passes at GCSE including English and maths.

It scraped 26 per cent in 2008, up from 17 per cent the year before.

Now Haringey Council has agreed a plan with the Government to bring the school’s results up to standard by 2011.

A council spokesman said: “There is only one secondary school in Haringey currently below the National Challenge benchmark.

“The aim is for this to be achieved by 2011 and we are confident that Woodside will reach the required level well before this date.”

The council was unable to give details of what the plan involves.

In 2007 three other schools failed to meet the target – Greig City Academy, John Loughborough School and St Thomas More.

But figures released this week by the Department for Children, Schools and Families show that Haringey is one of the top 20 most improved education authorities over the last ten years.

The borough is fourth in the UK for “value added” scores at GCSE level, which show how well a school has done in raising pupils from one test level to another.

Three schools, Gladesmore, Park View Academy and Northumberland Park, will be placed in the top 120 schools in the country for the progress that pupils have made.

Councillor Lorna Reith, cabinet member for children and young people, said: “Pupils and teachers have worked tremendously hard to achieve these results.

“I’m sure schools will build on the improvements of recent years.

“We continue to close the gap between our schools and the national average.

“These figures show there are very good secondary schools across the borough which are making a big difference to pupils’ achievements.”

Park View Academy headteacher Alex Atherton said: “These results prove that students of all levels of ability and from all cultural backgrounds do significantly better at Park View Academy than the rest of the country.

“The hard work of staff, students and parents deserves this recognition.”