GCSE results for Portsmouth schools were officially announced yesterday as 16 year olds went to collect their results across the city.
Overall the council has stated that performance across most of the city’s schools has improved, with provisional results showing that:
- 55% of pupils achieved five or more A* to C GCSEs including English and Maths, compared to 51% last year
- 58% of pupils achieved A*to C in English and Maths, compared to 53% last year
These results came against a national back drop of the greatest ever dip in GCSE grades since the exams were launched in 1988.
Cllr Stephen Morgan, ward councillor for Charles Dickens, said:
“Many congratulations to students on their achievements. I take my hat off to all the hard work of students and staff across our city have put in.
My congratulations also to the headteachers and their teams whose hard work and collaborative approach is a huge and effective part of the drive to deliver the best for all our pupils”.
Priory School in Southsea attracts students from Charles Dickens ward, and is where Cllr Morgan is vice chair of governors. This year the school celebrated its best GCSE results in the school’s history.
The percentage of candidates achieving five or more GCSE passes at Priory at grade C or above, including English and Maths, was the school’s highest ever at 57% – a 11% increase on the previous year.
Cllr Morgan added:
“School improvement is above all about attention to detail, both in terms of data collection and analysis and individual students getting the targeted support they need.
The city is on an improvement journey to make sure all our school’s offer the very best education for all young people. We need to work hard to close the disadvantage gap. This year’s results are step in the right direction”.
Starting this year new national government performance indicators are focusing on how much progress students make from where they start in Year 7 to when they complete their exams at the end of Year 11.
This new measure is known as ‘Progress 8’. This will be calculated for each school and as an overall city-wide figure later in the year.
