NO secondary schools in Malvern or the whole of Worcestershire were underperforming this year, according to Government figures.

Pupils’ Key Stage 4 results, released yesterday, show that the county’s schools are generally in good shape.

The results were based on a completely new system of monitoring schools, called Progress 8.

For the first time this year, schools were not judged on the proportion of pupils scoring at least five C grades at GCSE, including in English and maths.

Instead, Progress 8 looks at the progress a pupil makes from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school.

It compares pupils’ results with the achievements of other youngsters with the same prior attainment, and measures performance across eight qualifications.

The Government has argued that this measure is fairer, because it reflects that children start secondary school at different levels of academic ability and judges schools on the progress all their pupils make.

In Malvern and Ledbury, Hanley Castle High School, Dyson Perrins CE Academy and Queen Elizabeth Humanities College, in Bromyard, fared best, gaining better grades for students than other pupils nationally who had started secondary school at the same academic point as them.

The Chase, Newent Community School and Sixth Form and John Masefield High all scored negative Progress 8 figures, meaning their children achieved slightly worst grades than those nationally who started at the same level.

However, none of the schools were below -0.5, the level they must fall below before they are considered to be underperforming.

Headteachers have largely welcomed the new way of the school’s progress, but some believe the importance given to certain Government-approved subjects is stifling the range of subjects offered to pupils.

Under the system, English and maths get double weighting, and the results are based on the pupils’ three best other EBacc subjects – comprising history, geography, science and languages – and three other subjects chosen from a government-approved list.

Lindsey Cooke, headteacher at Hanley Castle, said: “We were absolutely delighted with our results as they were just as good as last year which was a record year for us at school.

“We like Progress 8 as a measure for a school’s performance because it includes information about virtually every child and every subject.

“However, one of the reasons we haven’t come out quite as well in the Progress 8 is we have refused to change the curriculum to suit the Government.

“We don’t put them in for qualifications that are unsuitable for them but put them in for ones that mean they can go on to study A-levels or take college courses elsewhere.

“We put them in for qualifications that prepare them for that not ones that make us look good in league tables.

“I think the reason parents choose Hanley Castle is that they know we will be the right thing for the children and we won’t sacrifice their children on the altar of attainment tables.”

Nationally, 282 secondaries, educating 206,991 children, fell under the Government’s floor standard based on this new measure. This is around 9.3 per cent of secondaries.

Schools that are considered under-performing face intervention, and could be taken over.