Last updated 19:42, Thursday, 12 June 2008

YOU CAN understand the indignation felt by two local schools this week on learning that the Government deems them to be ‘failing’ in terms of GCSE results.

Workington’s Southfield Technology College and Aspatria’s Beacon Hill School have been listed among 638 schools in England told to improve within three years or face a threat of closure.

Some schools may indeed deserve to be told: “could do better” - but little notice seems to have been taken of the great improvements wrought at both Southfield and Beacon Hill in recent times.

They’re on the list because fewer than 30 per cent of pupils gained A-C GCSE grades in five subjects including maths and English last year.

It is a random target, and one which certainly should not be used to cane these improving schools.

Some school league tables can help parents make choices, and do keep schools on their toes, but this week’s public damning of so called ‘failed’ schools is deeply unfair.

It is simply undermining the authority of teachers and placing seeds of doubt in the minds of parents.

These local schools do have further improvement plans, but as the county council continues to roll out its review of schools in the light of falling pupil rolls - which has already led to a series of proposed major shake-ups in the Carlisle and Copeland areas - their future is not guaranteed.

And if this is a first sign that Allerdale is being softened up for the much vaunted new school academies which are popping up everywhere else, then we should be told.