The head teacher of a special school has claimed some pupils are in danger of “slipping through the net” after the Government announced tough new GCSE targets.

Education Secretary Michael Gove recently announced a series of targets for under-performing schools at a conference in Birmingham.

They include setting secondary schools in England a target of securing five good GCSE passes, including English and maths, for at least half of their pupils by 2015.

This is up from the current target of 35 per cent.

Dr Daryl Brown, head teacher of Maple Hays School in Lichfield, Staffordshire, which specialises in teaching children with dyslexia, said some pupils would be “put at a disadvantage” by increasing the targets.

He said: “There are inherent problems in setting these kind of benchmarks.

“My concern is that some students will slip through the net as schools try to meet these targets without looking at what is best for the individual child.

“A clear drive to raise standards can only be a good thing for pupils. The shift of power away from central bureaucracy to individual schools should make them more responsive to the needs of their local community.

‘‘However, raising standards should not be seen as merely improving the percentage of pupils who get five or more GCSEs, but as the effectiveness with which a school improves the performance of each and every pupil.

“I hope that these proposals will truly result in ‘driving up standards for every child’ and not result in certain pupils being targeted in order to meet an arbitrary threshold.”

Mr Gove made the announcement during a speech to the National Conference of School Leaders at Birmingham’s ICC.

The new target of 50 per cent of pupils attaining five A* to C grade GCSEs, including English and maths, would require the worst-performing secondaries to raise their results to the levels achieved by the average school.

Those which fail could face takeover by a successful neighbouring academy.

“Education systems across the world are improving faster than England,” said Mr Gove.

“We should no longer tolerate a system in which so many pupils leave primary school without a good grasp of English and maths and leave secondary school without five good GCSEs.”

Dr Brown added that schools should instead continue to be measured using the “value added” marker, which looks at pupils’ overall progress rather than focusing on exam performance.

He said: “I would prefer to see schools measured on valued added factors, looking at how children are when they enter the school and how when they leave.

“We have 120 students at the school, and most join us towards the end of primary school or at the beginning of secondary school.

“We’ve found that primary schools are small enough to notice if a child has special educational needs (SEN), whereas at secondary school many children drop like a stone,’’ he said.

“At this school we work on widening horizons and working in a classroom environment rather than putting children in isolation.

“There are a lot of good schools which deal with disadvantaged pupils, whether socioeconomic or because of SEN, who will struggle to meet central government targets.”