Two years ago, I stood in a school hall in Sunderland on GCSE results day and watched the pride and surprise in the faces of teenagers as the envelopes were opened. Even after years of covering results days, I was emotional to see a set of outstanding results in a school facing so many challenges. Almost half of the school's pupils receive free school meals, meaning their parents are on low incomes.
In fact, the results in the ex-mining town of Hetton-le-Hole were as strong as the most affluent parts of southern England. This summer, Hetton Academy hit another milestone, with 80% of its pupils getting a pass of at least a grade 4 in maths and English. A grade 4 is roughly equivalent to a 'C' under the old system, and is seen as a passport to jobs and further education.
Another striking detail about Hetton is that almost all of its pupils are from a white, working-class background, a group that's been in the spotlight for some time. This week saw the launch of the second phase of an independent inquiry, led by former Cabinet minister Baroness Morris, into why children from those communities lag behind their peers at school. Education Secretary Lucy Powell said: "Right now, too many white, working-class children are falling behind at every stage of their education." But Hetton Academy seems to have defied the odds.
The school's principal, Vicky Pinkney, refuses to accept low incomes should mean low results. "I don't think we should be accepting less just because of the community you work in," she says. The stellar results have won Hetton a place among an elite group of schools: mainstream secondaries that don't select pupils academically, and where 80% of pupils get that all-important grade 4 in maths and English.
In fact, there were only 339 non-selective schools in England that hit an average 80% pass rate in maths and English for the three years to 2025, out of around 3,000 that published the relevant data. High achieving schools have been the focus of some political attention recently, with MPs in several parties arguing that we should study them closely. What can they tell us about how to raise standards?
And could other schools facing the same challenges as Hetton achieve equally impressive results? From a quick glance of those 339 high-achieving schools, it becomes clear that some of their success comes from things that are difficult to shift. In particular, the economic profile of the pupils clearly matters.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
