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Central Government has set (External) 198 priority measures for local government . Five or more GCSEs (inc English and Maths) at grades A*-C for pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 is indicator number NI 75.
Details of national indicator results can be found in the (External) Floor Tragets Interactive section of the Department for Communities and Local Government website .
Table 1 includes both percentage rates for pupils achieving five or more A*-C grades in any discipline, and those achieving five or more including English or Maths. All the rates in this research monitor are by place of pupil residence, but rates are also available by location of educational institution. It appears that the numbers by place of educational institution are the data set used to derive NI 75, therefore the figures in Table 1 (column 4) are slightly at variance with the official national indicator results.
Photograph of Clitheroe Royal Grammar School in Ribble Valley Source (External) Clitheroe Royal Grammar School
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCFS) has released GCSE and Equivalent results for young people for all 354 Local Authority Districts in England. The figures provide information about pupils in 3,862 maintained schools for the academic year 2006/07. The data are used by the DCFS and other Government Departments to monitor pupils' performance against national and local education targets.
The local and regional figures are drawn from schools maintained by a local authority: Community, Foundation, Voluntary Aided, Voluntary Controlled, Academy, City Technology College, Community Special and Foundation Special. The only type of local authority maintained school that is not included is a Pupil Referral Unit.
Please note that there is some incompatibility between the England figure in Table 1, and the regional and local totals. The England figure of 666,247 is based on results from all relevant schools and includes pupils from overseas. In comparison, the local and regional figures only sum to 593,927.
The complete set of results can be downloaded from the neighbourhood section of the (External) Office for National Statistics (ONS) website , whilst our Data Downloads contain all the Lancashire figures for 2006/07. This research monitor only considers a selection of the available information whilst the full data set covers additional results such as analysis by gender and pass rates for A*-G grades.
The latest performance results for Lancashire schools at the various Key Stage levels can be viewed on the (External) Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) website , which also includes GCSE figures by school and achievement and attainment results (post 16) for schools and colleges.
Please also see the results on (External) Small Area Pupil Attainmant on the DCSF website .
Details of schools in the Lancashire County Council area can be found on the (External) Lancashire Grid for Learning website .
The (External) Ofsted website contains inspection reports and other publications that are relevant to schools in the broader Lancashire area.
Results from the 2007 Indices of Deprivation include details of how income deprivation affects children and of education, skills and training deprivation .
Our Data Downloads contain district population projections by various age groups. The figures cover each year from 2006 to 2031 and provide a guide to the future requirement for school places.
Our survey Lancashire, County of Opportunity includes complementary information that highlights the universities and some of the colleges in Lancashire.
All the figures are referenced by student place of residence and not by location of educational institution however data by place of institution can be obtained from the ONS website.
Please note that the Archive Section of this website contains earlier editions of this research monitor.
The DCSF has released GCSE and Equivalent results for young people by ethnic groups in England for 2006/07. The figures go down to the local authority level and the groups have been categorised as follows: White, Mixed, Asian, Black, Chinese, Other Ethnic and Unclassified. Figures have also been released at the GCE/VCE, A/AS levels.
The full set of results can be obtained from the (External) Office for National Statistics .
There are a number of missing data sets for the smaller ethnic groups for each of the 14 authorities in the Lancashire; therefore it has been decided not to provide analysis of the figures, but simply to advertise their presence so individuals can access the figures.
At the national level, 60.4% of pupils achieved five or more grade A*-C passes, whilst 3.7% achieved no GCSE passes. For the North West region 60.3% achieved at least five A*-C passes and 2.6% recorded no graded results.
Photograph of Borwick Hall, an outdoor leisure facility in Lancaster district Source Lancashire Outdoor Education
Table 1 details the figures for the 12 districts and the two unitary authorities in the Lancashire NUTS-2 area. Each Lancashire authority has been ranked by the percentage of pupils receiving five A*-C passes or more regardless of which qualification was achieved. Figures are also included for the smaller percentage rates of those that have both English and maths amongst their list of passes five passes or more at grades A*-C.
In general terms, the Lancashire results are very encouraging with nine of the 14 Lancashire authorities achieving pass rates for the A*-C grades that were higher than the England average.
Table 1 reveals that Ribble Valley District, with a rate of 77.1%, achieved the second highest ranking in England. Fylde District recorded the next highest percentage amongst the 14 Lancashire authorities (71.7%) and had a ranking of 20th place. A further three district (Chorley, Lancaster and South Ribble) were ranked in the top 100.
At the other extreme, three Lancashire authorities: Blackpool, Burnley and Pendle, were all ranked in the bottom 300. Unfortunately for Burnley, the 42.6% pass rate for five a more A*-C grades was the worst rate out of all 352 authorities in England for which a rate was available (two had no result). The second lowest rate (42.9%) was recorded in Hastings whilst no other authority had a percentage below 45%. Pendle, with 48.1% was one of the 14 authorities with a pass rate of below 50%.
The three authorities with the lowest rates also experience noticeable problems of deprivation .
The Government intends to renew and/or replace all secondary schools over a 10 to 15 year period that began in 2005/2006. Lancashire has been included in the first wave of the BSF programme which covers schools in Burnley and parts of Pendle district.
It has been stated locally that short-term upheavals in Burnley as a result of the rebuilding programme have led to a number of parents sending their children to schools in neighbouring authorities. The results in this research monitor are by place of residence therefore any such short-term movements should not directly contribute to the low figure for Burnley. It would be a matter of conjecture to state that the school rebuilding programme may adversely affect the results of pupils resident in both Burnley and Pendle who continue to attend schools in the district.
The GCSE results only cover the maintained schools. Lancashire also has a number of highly-regarded private independent schools: (External) Sonyhurst College in the Ribble Valley; (External) Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School , Blackburn; (External) Westholme School , Blackburn; (External) Kirkham Grammar School ; (External) King Edward VII and Queen Mary School , Lytham St. Annes; and (External) Rossall School , Fleetwood.
The Government has set a national threshold target that by 2011, 53% should achieve at least five GCSE grades A*-C including English and Maths by the end of Key Stage 4.
Column 4 in Table 1 reveals that Burnley with 34.4%, recorded a rate well below the government target. A further nine Lancashire local authorities were below the 2011 target leaving only four that achieved this level during the 2006/07 academic year.The (External) Lancashire Education Business Partnership aims to work with employers, schools, work based learning providers and colleges across the county. The partnership is involved with work experience placements and other initiatives to help create a motivated, prepared and knowledgeable work force of the future.
Figure 1 presents analysis of the Lancashire results down to the Middle Super Output Area (MSOA) level. In total, there are 194 MSOAs covering the Lancashire NUTS-2 area and Figure 1 details the figures by selected broad groupings for all these areas. The Lancashire results were for 18,475 pupils, but the results for some of the MSOAs are based on relatively low numbers and therefore should be treated with some caution.
Figure 1 Rates of Five or More GCSEs at Grades A*-C by Middle-Layer Super Output Areas, 2006/07Map showing the percentage of all pupils at the end of KS4 who achieved 5 or more GCSEs at grades A* to C in each of Lancashire's middle-layer super output areas - see text for details Source Office for National Statistics
In general terms, Figure 1 reveals that the Middle Super Output Areas (MSOAs) recording the lowest pass rates for at least five A*-C grades are within the urban areas of Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Preston, Blackpool and the area encompassing Cleveleys/Thornton and Fleetwood. Blackburn, Accrington, Skelmersdale, Lancaster and Morecambe are amongst the major urban areas that avoided recording any MSOAs in the below 40% category.
The predominantly rural parts of the county contain most of the MSOAs in the 70% and over category. The MSOA with the highest pass rate in Lancashire was Ribble Valley 008 (Clayton-le-Dale, Wilpshire and Mellor) with a rate of 87.5%. Joint second with 87.3% were Chorley 004 (Whittle-le-Woods, Heapey and Anglezarke) and Wyre 006 (Wyresdale, Calder and Brock). In total, 24 Lancashire MSOAs recorded rates in excess of 80%.
At the other extreme, three MSOAs recorded rates below 30%. The lowest figure was in the MSOA Burnley 010, (Rosegrove South and Weavers Triangle) where the pass rate was just 20.3%. This was the fourth lowest rate out of 6,717 MSOAs across England (no figures available for an additional 62 MSOAs in England). The second lowest rate in Lancashire was Pendle 010 (Lower Marsden) with 29.3%, followed by Burnley 007 (Turf Moor and Queen's Park) with 29.4%.
GCSE and Equivalent ResultsThis page was compiled by Bryan Moulding .
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