DESPITE slight improvements in the number of Southampton children making the Government’s required grade in science and English compared to last year, the city has slid further down the national rankings.
In 2008, results placed Southampton as the sixth worst performing in England, but this year’s results revealed only two authorities – Hackney and Medway Towns – recorded lower levels of pupils achieving the expected standards.
But what is the reason for the city’s slide down the tables?
Do we blame teachers, lack of spending on facilities, or is it down to social, economic or cultural reasons?
City MP and Cabinet minister John Denham, a former Secretary of State for Skills and Universities, believes one reason is a lack of willingness to accept the extent of the problem.
“There has been an acceptance of poor performance in the city’s education for far too long,” said the Southampton Itchen MP.
“If you go back ten years we were around about the national average in both primary and secondaries.
“While it’s quite true that schools have got better and our performances have improved, they have simply not improved as fast as the national average.
“This needs a clear and single- minded absolute focus on raising standards, working with the schools to see why people are doing better than us with the same sort of children we’ve got.
“Bring all the schools together – primary and secondary – and get everybody to face up to the facts and accept there’s no reason why the school performance should be as bad as it is.
But he believes raising standards isn’t just down to teachers.
“The whole community has got to recognise it’s got a part to play,” he said.
See today's Daily Echo for the full investigation into the problems harming education in Southampton.
