Proposals for the future of secondary education in Nottingham are already on track to meet the gauntlet thrown down by Secretary of State for Education, Ed Balls that schools not reaching GCSE targets in three years’ time will close and become academies.

The government is targeting 638 schools nationally in which fewer than 30% of pupils achieve at least five good GCSEs including English and maths. In Nottingham, where 10 schools are below the new target, some are already near to achieving the target, some are due to become academies within two years and others are being refurbished or remodelled as part of the £90 million Building Schools for the Future programme.

Councillor David Mellen, Nottingham City Council’s Portfolio holder for Children’s Services, said: “Nottingham already has plans in place to meet the new target. We have 10 schools below the target but only four that are achieving less than 20 per cent. All our schools have already seen considerable improvements and are predicting improved results again this year. Some of our schools are on the cusp of achieving 30 per cent, and there are others where there is more work to do. Schools have three years to achieve the targets and there is a lot of hard work taking place to enable the improvements that have already been made to continue.

“Five of these 10 schools have higher than average contextual value added scores for the progress pupils make between Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 so we know that our schools are doing well.

“Alongside that, six of the 10 schools in Nottingham not yet reaching the new targets are included in major development proposals, either as academies or as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme, and a seventh school, Haywood, is closing in 2009”.