Yesterday I wrote a letter to Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families concerning the recent announcements about "closing" any school with less than 30% of children gaining certain qualifications.
The Manor School in King's Hedges missed this target by 1% last year, and we all hope this figure will improve under the new headteacher.
However what schools like the Manor need is support and not to be labelled as "failures" in public. The GCSE pass rate is a single measure, in others Manor does better. It has the second highest value add in the County and has amongst the best sustained improvement in KS3 figures nationally according to the Government's own figures.
Deciding to take action on one figure and one figure alone is a recipe for disaster: schools will have an incentive to exclude pupils on academic ability rather than behaviour. This is when Cambridgeshire's out of school education is already at breaking point.
Valuable work with the most vulnerable students will not be taken into account.
As I said in my letter to Mr Balls: I hope that the package of changes will work to raise opportunities for children in King's Hedges, but I fear that the measurement chosen and the public branding of schools will be counterproductive.
Details of the Liberal Democrats education policy can be found in the education section of the main party website.
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