Telford’s £70 million super school has gone to the top in a dispute with the Government over its claims that it was wrongly named on a national hit list of underperforming schools.
The principal of Hadley Learning Community, Dr Gill Eatough, has written to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Education challenging the way the system was run.
And the signs are the school has won the battle and that the system may be changed.
Last month, HLC was among hundreds of schools nationwide, and six locally, given an ultimatum to improve results or face being closed or turned into academies.
Schools were targeted because, government officials claimed less than 30 per cent of pupils achieved at least five good GCSE grades, including maths and English.
But HLC is disputing those figures, saying some pupils’ results were not taken into account.
Dr Eatough said: “Hadley Learning Community was opened as a major PFI project in January 2007 and was inspected in January 2008.
“At this inspection, the results at Key Stage 4 met the Government’s floor targets, which meant 30 per cent of pupils achieved five GCSEs at grades A*-C, including English and maths.
“We have since discovered that the reason for us being placed on the national challenge list is because only the results of 15-year-old pupils were taken into account, rather than the whole number of pupils who took their exams.
“Three of our students who took their GCSEs were not aged 15 and their results were not counted.”
“We currently have approximately 100 students in Year 10 and 11 so every change, however seemingly small, affects our figures.”
Dr Eatough highlighted this disadvantage in her letter. “We have received indications back that this method will be changed,” she said.
She added: “Our pupils did incredibly well to achieve these results considering they moved schools in the middle of their GCSEs and we look forward to building upon their success.”
