West Berkshire Conservatives welcomed the visit of Education Minister David Laws to John O’Gaunt’s school in Hungerford last week.
Council Leader Gordon Lundie said, “I am delighted that the Minister has been able to visit one of our schools and see for himself the progress that is being made. We discussed our plans for education in Hungerford with the Minister and the Head Teacher and the Minister was broadly supportive of the approach that we are taking. We had a really useful discussion about the effective use of the Conservative Government’s Pupil Premium funding which has helped us make significant progress in closing the attainment gap this year.”
“As reported by OFSTED, the attainment gap refers to the difference in performance in 2012 between those who received free school meals and those who did not. That data cannot therefore be used to describe the situation this year. In addition, the term ‘attainment’ should not be used interchangeably with the word ‘achievement’ where we have evidence of real progress.
“We believe that last week’s provisional GCSE results are a very welcome improvement in standards for many of our schools across the District and I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate students, their parents, teachers and governing bodies for their effort and commitment.”
“GCSE results in West Berkshire have shown a marked increase this year bringing the average amount of students achieving 5A*-C results including English and Maths to over 61%. This is a rise of four percentage points against the background of an expected national dip from the 59% national average last year.”
“Little Heath and Denefield Schools have shown major improvements with over twelve and seventeen percentage points respectively more than last year. Students at St Bartholomew’s School and The Willink School have achieved outstanding results with over 70% of students in both schools achieving 5A*-C including English and Mathematics.”