There's good news for the Government in the school league tables published today. Yes, more English secondary schools are deemed to be "failing" – 195 based on last summer's GCSE results, compared to 107 based on results in 2011. But that's because the Department for Education has raised the floor target. Last year, a school was said to be failing if fewer than 35 per cent of its pupils got five or more GCSEs at grade C or above including Maths and English, whereas this year the threshold has been raised to 40 per cent. Had the same floor applied this year, the number of failing schools would have increased to 251 – which supports Michael Gove's view that introducing tougher floor targets raises standards. (To read more, click here.)
