Ed Balls and Gordon Brown will set a minimum threshold for GCSE results
Almost one in five secondary schools in England are to be given a warning to improve exam results or face closure.........

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have a look at the list....

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that's all very well isnt it but teachers can only work with the students they have in their care. If your base line is really low there's only so much students can improve.

Likewise in our primaries. The school i went to look round this last week has been given what i think are incredibly stupid and impossible targets. like 65% for next year's Y6 SATS. which praps doesnt sound alot until you consider that its an inner city school in the middle of a rough council estate where children's first needs are more about survival than education. The need to learn some life skills is far more relevant to them. And last year they struggled with reaching 25%...

These ppl sit all day in their ivory towers and have no idea as to the reality of education in our schools. It makes me so so cross!

You cant just measure a school on its academic achievements. I dont think...

A child/young person is SO much more than a piece of paper - always.

Catbells x

i agree Catbells

all the schools that are on the list near me suffer from high intake of asylum seekers and children with EAL

how can they pass 5 GCSEs...some of them are lucky to have escaped their country with their lives or are living in low income families or in care

link not there now

could someone pm me the list please.

sorry links updated...too early for my brain to be multitasking

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have a look at the list....

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There's a long list for my area - One of the schools has already been told it is closing (falling numbers) but it makes you wonder if it wasn't on the list would it have been given a longer reprieve?

I am so glad the government has taken notice of the recent report - two days ago - about the state of youths in the UK including 'Children feel increasingly pressurised, in particular, by school, exams and commercial marketing.'

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I also love this notion that by closing failing schools the top schools will be community schools within a couple of years. Either better performing schools are going to be inundated with underperforming pupils, causing larger classes and pupil numbers, or we will see the acadamies becoming the new dogma - like inclusion. Talking of which, does anyone have the suspension rates for sen students in acadamies? Going from what I've heard about our local ones they are far from inclusive. The use of zero tollerance behaviour policies to change around pupil behaviour directly discriminates against SEN students allowing them to rid themselves of many such students.

As far as I'm aware because of the differences in funding and greater freedom from local authorities acadamies are not considered as local community schools - is this an admission that acadamies are considered expensive sink schools?

11 years of interfearing with education and changing the targets this is the best they can now come up with?

The only school named near me has been closed, demolished and rebuilt elsewhere................. so the list is slightly old!

its crazy an idea because as George says where are all these children going to end up?

its just a vicious circle.

still makes me cross though.

MOST teaching and support staff are doing the vry best that that they can. you can't work with what you havent got. nor can we perform miracles. - well..not all the time!

where do these stupid ppl get their ideas from?

.........and what are they going to do with the children.My daughters school is on the list Two schools on there are closing in our county one this term and the other is to be amalgamated with another to form Academy.My daughters school was chosen but because it is the only faith school in the north of the county other than a private school the Church stepped in and refused before they got to step two.She has been extremely happy and chose to stay on and do her 'A' Levels there when there are two schools either side of hers and one which her brothers went to with a school bus outside the door. The %'A' Level results at this school have in some years been higher than the private schools nearby. There GCSE's are not good but there are reasons for that and it isn't all to do with the staff.Look at the list in Birmingham and what do they think they are going to do with all those kids.Closing and changing the name of the school is not going to make the difference there will be loads of kids who English is probably the third language.You do wonder at the politicans.

Hi JOAT,

My daughters school will be put together with a neighbouring primary school to create a single school going from 4 to 18.

The school model the academy is based on is a good one from America which works extremely well in areas where children are not expected to do well.

My concern is they will only be implementing part of the idea which has made it successful. The school will be split into smaller units, each with their own staff. The idea being the students and staff will get to know each other much better.

What they won't be implementing is contracts to parents, students and staff. If they did and students were having problems with their homework the student is able to ring the teacher at home for advice. Can you imagine teachers here giving all their students their home numbers???

The other problem is the staff and students will remain the same. This is the same primary school where students from a particular ethnic minority group went all the way through the primary school and started at the secondary school with a reading age of 6 or lower. It was also the school where I was threatened with legal action and who deliberately downgraded my daughters abilities in her end of year report. So much that the head teacher at the new school she went to mentioned in 6 weeks she had gone up two levels across the board!

So I'm a little sceptical how this is supposed to suddenly turn things round.

Interestingly enough I noticed at least one academy on the list!

As a side note the academy I wanted my daughter to go to is doing the GCSEs for the first time this year, it will be interesting to see how they do, though part of their admission policy is a % of places go to children from a more advantaged area, and 10% meeting their specialist subject. In theory as it was a brand new school they should do very well.

my daughter's school is on that list

but what they dont take into account is the high number of non english (EAL) children we have in this area by the look of it

the real test would come if all these stupid ppl in their ivory towers had to study Somali, or Urdu or any other language completely foreign to their own.

then they might have some idea of the reality which so many children face in our country.

I dont think enough credit goes to our young ppl. They face a huge uphill battle dont they. everyday.

If English is an additional langauge which it is for so many of these children/young ppl - then how on earth are they expected to reach these ludicrously, unrealistic targets?

And then there are those who were born in this country but live in poverty. Education has about as much meaning as going to the moon.

By all means set targets. but please let them be realistic ones. and support and encouragement rather than having a ' do this or else' approach.

Seems that children/young ppl are just a commodity to be shifted around from pillar to post.

And that is the saddest fact of all.

These ppl are afterall the future of this country, this economy. Dont they see that - or dont' they care?

Catbells x

Not wanting to detract from the main conversation however:

'And then there are those who were born in this country but live in poverty. Education has about as much meaning as going to the moon.'

While I woud not disagree there is a direct link between poverty and education I cannot help feeling there is another causality acting here. In many underdeveloped countries education is seen as the key to getting out of poverty.

For instance in many african countries education is highly valued by young people who will walk for miles to get an education.

Last night I had a discussion with Miss G about fees because of the cost of the courses she is now considering. No, there is no way we could afford the course fees, which means she will need to get student grants to help towards living costs and to pay for courses. This put her off at first until we talked about how low the repayments were, no or very little interest better wages, job chances etc. And while her choice was focussed on music many of the skills and knowledge she will develop could be transferred to similar areas.

Rather naughtily I compared this with the attitudes of her best friend and her sister. The sister heard all that was needed was personality so didn't study and now stacks shelves (nothing wrong with that job) during the night for a supermarket after doing nothing for two years. Her friend wants to do something similar but has opted for 'health and social science' because she percieves it as the easiest option and is worth two GCSEs. She doesn't expect to pass in maths foundation, or English and didn't want to redo either, but has to do one of them so has opted for English because she finds that 'easier'. She doesn't want to do health and social studies but it is easy. I then asked her if she was employer and had to choose between the them and someone who had gone on to study for A'levels and then a degree in the chosen profession which she would choose.

To be fair the sisters get little encouragement at home and the friend seems determined to go through life opting for the easiest options. Nor does she seem to want to talk to me, though that doesn't stop me from time to time.

There seems to be a huge gulf in attitude between the african child who will walk for miles for an education and many of our young people who have it on their doorstep which goes much deeper then poverty. It is not the poverty per se which is the problem.

Perhaps a reflection of this was a comment made to me recently. Miss G is working on a personal project at the moment and has to raise £3000 in sponsorship. As part of this she has applied for a youth fund. A major stumbling block is finding an organisation which will be happy to act on her part to handle the sponsorship money. Talking to one of the full time staff about this problem and how it is now putting her project in jeopardy she actually thanked me for supporting my daughter on this!

As a society we are so caught up on the media perception of youth that when they break out of this perception there is little support or expectation that they can achieve. (she has been shortlisted and has to attend an interview on Wednesday so possitive vibes welcomed).

To bring things back to the thread:

'These ppl are afterall the future of this country, this economy. Dont they see that - or dont' they care?'

I think they do care, but results take time and they are constantly tackling the problem as politicians. Not altogether a bad thing except when your main concerns turn to publicity and the next election.

Like the recent announcement that social housing should depend on those living in them are working, it is about saying the things electors want to hear and what is 'popular'. What if none of those schools met the targets being set? The sheer logistics of what they are proposing would be a pure nightmare. The number of childrens lives and education would be disrupted would cause huge disruptions in their education setting many even further back.

So not only are they threatening to kicking these families out of their homes and forcing them to be homeless, they are going to shut down their schools.

To tie in the two parts of this post, Miss G's friend goes to one of our higher performing schools and will waste her education, Miss G goes to a school on this list, is a special needs pupil and is getting the most out of her education. If the school was suddenly closed down this year because of poor results her education would be screwed. She would suffer not because the school had failed her, but politicians had failed education. And just to be contentious if as a family we were evicted because I was out of work I'm sure her chances of rising above the disadvantages she faces would be greatly enhanced

For all their talk about wanting to improve the lives of young people in this country recent announcements convince me they are heading to causing so much damage to our young that if it was done by anyone else it would be criminal.