Headteachers hit back at school closure threats

12:27pm Wed 11th Jun 08:: written by Luke Cross

Two schools have hit back after being branded among the poorest performing in the country and threatened with closure.

Beechwood School, in Long Readings Lane, Slough, and Burnham Upper School, in Opendale Road, Burnham, are two of 638 UK schools not making the grade, according to the Government.

Ed Balls, schools secretary, declared that the ‘poorest performing schools’, where fewer than 30 per cent of students achieve five GCSEs A* to C including English and Maths, must improve in three years, otherwise they could be closed or transformed into partly privately funded academies or trust schools.

Slough Borough Council and Buckinghamshire County Council have about 50 days to produce detailed action plans showing how schools will improve exam results.

Julia Shepard, head teacher at Beechwood, said that by other Government measures her school, where a third of pupils have English as an additional language, is in the top 10 per cent in the country.

She said: “I regret that the Government is using this one crude measure at this moment in time as they have developed so many more sophisticated measures to give a broader, robust view of a school’s standards.”

Head teacher at Burnham Upper Max Bilsborough, who joined in 2006, dismissed talk of closure and spoke of improvements since the school was placed in special measures by Ofsted last year.

Slamming talk of ‘failing’ schools and closures, he said: “I think it is very dangerous because it creates rumour and misinformation.”

See this week’s Express and Advertiser for more.

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