Exam successes on the rise in Birmingham schools
Schoolchildren in Birmingham are improving virtually across the board, according to the city’s end of term report for 2009.
[ Download a pdf of all the Birmingham schools' exam results here ]
Significant improvements in pupils’ results, most noticeably among early years reception children and at GCSE, prompted the city’s Cabinet member for children, young people and families to claim that Birmingham was gaining recognition as an “education powerhouse”.
But he expressed concern at whether national budgets would allow the city’s education success to continue in the future.
Coun Les Lawrence, addressing a press conference in Ladywood to unveil the city’s results, said the funding for schools was “very ringfenced” for the next financial year, but they had no knowledge of what will come after that.
“It’s not only worrying for us but also for our schools,” he added.
Birmingham’s GCSE results led the success story, with the proportion of pupils achieving at least five A*-C passes having risen from last year’s 66.4 per cent to 72.4 per cent - well above the provisional national average of 70 per cent.
The city also improves when English and maths are included, rising from 45.4 per cent to 47.5 per cent, although this is still below the national average of 49.7 per cent.
But, significantly, it means the number of secondary schools at risk of Government intervention - those with less than 30 per cent including maths and English - has halved from 20 last year to just ten.
