GCSE misery

Oasis principal Nigel Whittle

1 More Image(s) In Gallery

OASIS Academy Oldham has some of the country’s worst results in new “early” GCSE league tables that critics have branded unfair.

Pupil performance across Oldham is among the lowest in the country. Only 25 per cent of pupils at Oasis achieved the benchmark of at least five A*-C grades, including English and maths, based on provisional data from this summer’s exams. This has halved from 50 per cent in 2013 and puts the Hollinwood academy among the 100 worst-performing schools in England.

Waterhead Academy is also in the bottom 200 schools with a figure of 29 per cent, down from 33 per in 2014. Blue Coat school tops the local table with 80 per cent.

Secondary league tables are usually published in January, but the Department for Education wanted parents to see schools’ results before the deadline for applying for places.

Critics say this is unfair because the figures don’t include changes to grades following appeals and re-marks. There is also no measure of progress.

But officials argue results are expected to change at a “very small minority” of schools. Full league tables will also be published in February.

Colette Macklin, principal at Waterhead Academy, said: “Our unvalidated results are not correct as they do not include re-marked GCSEs and other corrections that have been accepted by the DfE. The validated results will show them to be the same as 2014.

“Waterhead Academy has had some outstanding individual pupil successes at GCSE. We are very disappointed that our school improvement work has not yet impacted on our overall GCSE results and they remain in line with 2014. We are confident our 2016 results will increase significantly.”

Nigel Whittle was appointed Oasis principal last month. A statement from the school said: “Under his leadership, the school is well placed to deliver exceptional education to our students.”

Overall, the five A-C pass rate in Oldham has fallen to 49.7 per cent, the 24th worst out of 150 local authorities in England and below the national average of 52.8 per cent.

The league table also shows the number of pupils achieving the English Baccalaureate — at least C grades in English, maths, sciences, a foreign language and either history or geography. Oldham’s figure of 13.5 per cent is the fourth lowest in the country.

Six Oldham schools had less than 10 per cent of pupils achieving the EBacc, with Oasis posting the lowest figure of five per cent.