Pressure as asylum seeker scheme ‘stalls’ School ranking method is ‘flawed and dangerous’ ‘Selective system skews the balance’

CANTERBURY & FAVERSHAM GCSE SCHOOLS ATTAINMENT

Council chiefs say they are facing a shortfall of at least £1.5m next year for supporting young asylum seekers who have turned 18 but remain the responsibility of the authority.

KCC says the number of care leavers it continues to be responsible for is expected to rise to 940 by the end of next year from about 800 this year.

The increase is partly linked to the arrival of several hundred asylum seeker children in recent years, which came to a head in 2015. That led to the government introducing a dispersal scheme to ease the pressure on councils like Kent, which has now “stalled”.

Cllr Roger Gough, cabinet member for children’s services, said the council was “incurring very significant costs” and the government needed to act.

He said: “What came in in 2016 was the National Transfer Scheme, under which councils like ours could ask others to take on other children and given support elsewhere.

“That has undoubtedly stalled as of late.” A controversial method of measuring school progress has come under fire as new figures suggest eight of the 11 secondaries in the Canterbury district and Faversham are underperforming.

Government tables for last year’s GCSES class just one local school as ‘above average’ - Simon Langton Girls’ Grammar - while Barton Court Grammar and St Anselm’s recorded ‘average’ scores in the Progress 8 rankings.

The remaining eight schools are all ruled to be ‘below average’ and among the bottom 32% in England.

But the Progress 8 score - which compares GCSE pupils’ progress against those of the same ability when leaving primary school - has been heavily criticised.

Bottom of the table is Simon Langton Boy’s Grammar, but its executive head teacher, Mat- thew Baxter, says it has little to do with academic achievement as the system does not recognise the alternative IGCSE English qualification it offers to pupils.

“Because of this some of the results the boys achieved simply don’t get included in the league tables,” he said.

The school adopted the IGCSE in 2017 because teachers saw it as more challenging.

Dr Baxter said: “Individual students are not affected in any way and the school saw no point in delivering a different course simply because it would secure a good Progress 8 score for the school – and because the government wanted them to.

“I think both Langtons are close to the top. The schools both have good teachers and excellent students.”

Meanwhile, Nicki Mattin, the principal of Sturry’s Spires Academy, says scoring grammars and non-selective schools together

Simon Langton Boys' Grammar 49.1

can skew results, pointing to the fact that 43% of her pupils are classed as disadvantaged and have either received free schools meals in the last six years or been in care.

“It makes the high schools look like they are struggling, but actually that’s because they are without the top 30% of pupils which other schools have,” she said.

“If you have a low attaining and disadvantaged intake like we do, you’re more likely to do worse. Which is what makes what Spires has done even more important. “

The head of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar, David Anderson, also says his school has been unfairly penalised by the new GCSE cur-

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riculum and its actual results are better than the tables suggest.

Pupils at the Faversham school sit some of their GCSE exams in Year 10, meaning that in 2018 some had a number of older A*-E grades, which are no longer taken into account in rankings.

“This places us almost at the bottom of the GCSE league tables, which we have never been anywhere near,” he said.

“We have calculated that the removal of these results has reduced our likely Pupil Progress grade by between 0.25 and 0.30, which is significant. We knew all along that the GCSE results would fall, but we don’t want people to think any less of the school.”

‘If you have a low attaining and disadvantaged intake like we do, you’re more likely to do worse’

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