The Children’s Plan, published in December 2007, includes an overview of the key activities we are undertaking to raise standards in secondary schools. Some key facts are:
Record numbers of 16-year-olds are now achieving five good GCSEs. In total over 470,000 more young people have gained at least five good GCSEs over the period 1997-2007. Total funding per pupil has increased by 87 per cent. in real terms since 1997, and the full-time equivalent (FTE) number of teachers in local authority maintained secondary schools has increased by 27,400 and 69,500 for FTE teaching assistants and other support staff.
2007 provisional results show there has been a 17 percentage point increase in the number of 14-year-old pupils achieving level 5 or above in English, a 16 percentage point increase in mathematics and a 13 percentage point increase in science at key stage 3 since 1997. At key stage 4, 60.8 per cent. of pupils aged 15 achieved five or more good GCSEs—a 15.7 percentage point increase since 1997—which means the 2008 60 per cent. target for the percentage achieving 5+ A*-C grades has been achieved a year early.
Through the Building Schools for the Future and Academies programmes we are investing £9.3 billion over the three years 2007-2008 to 2010-2011 to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in England.
More than 2,800 secondary schools—88 per cent. of the total—have specialist school status and we are on track to achieve the target of every eligible school achieving specialist status by next year. More than 300 schools have either become Trusts or are working towards Trust status enabling them to work with external partners to create a distinctive ethos and direction for their school.
There are now 83 academies open in 49 local authorities. The Government are firmly committed to establishing 400 academies and regard the scaling up of the programme as a national imperative, supported by the growing body of evidence—improved GCSE results and key stage 3 results; and independent reports by the National Audit Office, PricewaterhouseCooper and Ofsted that academies are proving to be highly effective. A further 50 academies are projected to open in each of the following three years, (2008 to 2010), thereby exceeding the target of 200 academies by 2010.
There is more work still to do. In recent years, the number of children eligible for free school meals achieving five good GCSEs has improved faster than the national average, but we need to do more to tackle some of the gaps between economically disadvantaged pupils and their peers, and between boys and girls.
The Secondary National Strategy for School Improvement is at the heart of our work to transform secondary education and spreads effective teaching and learning to all schools through training and materials, a comprehensive development programme for teachers and support from local consultants who are experts in their field. This year we will be renewing the secondary frameworks for teaching to provide teachers with resources to capitalise on the opportunity presented by the new secondary curriculum to accelerate progress for all pupils.
To ensure that all pupils are able to fulfil their potential, we continue to seek to improve attendance and behaviour in schools. Our national programme will strengthen schools’ capacity, to increase significantly the two-thirds of secondary schools judged good or outstanding by Ofsted in standards of behaviour. The Children’s Plan set for all local authorities the goal of 5 per cent. or fewer ‘persistent absentees’ amongst their secondary pupils by 2011, reducing the level by a third compared to 2006.