Bid to solve grades crisis - schools' chiefs believe they can raise average GCSE grades by 50 per cent in just two years

SCHOOLS chiefs believe they can raise average GCSE grades by 50 per cent in just two years – and it will only cost £230,000.
The bold claim, described as “expensive hot air” by opposition councillors this week, follows the publication of a damning report in September that has forced City Hall into proposing a dramatic overhaul of its education system.
The Education Commission’s findings said Westminster had unacceptably low GCSE grades and was failing pupils with learning difficulties.
Planned changes include naming and shaming poor performing schools, teaching parents to be “more responsible” about learning and forcing schools to pool resources.
“Super-heads” would seize control of a series flagging schools – just like Quinton Kynaston headteacher Jo Shuter did when Pimlico School was in special measures.
Westminster Council leader Councillor Colin Barrow, said the changes would boost the percentage of pupils achieving five good GCSEs to 75 per cent, adding: “We have set ourselves ambitious targets but ones that we firmly believe we can achieve.”
But Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour Group, said: “This so-called education initiative is just more expensive hot air. How can anyone believe a word Westminster Conservatives say about education after the decades of failure and incompetence at City Hall?”
A central plank of the proposals, due to be rubber-stamped early next month, is that Westminster Council will stop providing education services and instead act as a “broker” for schools as they buy services from neighbouring boroughs and private companies.
The scheme will net the council – which is aiming to cut £2.2million from the schools budget by 2012 – millions each year but critics are yet to be convinced of its overall value.
A spokesman added: “The committee is set to meet in January before the final proposals are signed off in February.”
JAMIE WELHAM