Company 'fined' for failing to hit GCSE target
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Your support makes all the difference.The first private company to take over the running of a state education authority will be "fined" for the second year running for failing to meet its target for improving GCSE results.
CEA@Islington will lose part of the management fee of £857,000 a year that it receives for overseeing Islington Council's schools and their support services, despite a significant improvement in results.
Provisional figures show that 32.7 per cent of its pupils in the north London borough achieved at least five top A* to C grades, compared to 28.7 per cent last year. But the figure fell short of 39 per cent, the target agreed when it took over the services two years ago.
The council and CEA@Islington said they were delighted with the improvement.
James Kempton, Islington's education representative, said: "These are Islington's best-ever set of GCSE results. We always said this was the year we would start to see the impact of the council's partnership with CEA@Islington in raising standards.
"There is still a great deal more work to be done and we know that we have set CEA@Islington very demanding targets. However, this is evidence that real progress is being made and gives everyone confidence that our secondary schools will continue to improve."
Bill Clark, director of school services for CEA@Islington, said: "Though these results have not hit the extremely ambitious targets set in the contract we have with Islington Council, by working in partnership with schools across the borough and ensuring they receive all the support they need, we are confident we will be able to improve even further on these results in the years to come ... As in past years, the final results are likely to be higher than those available today."
Last year the firm lost about £300,000 for failing to meet its GCSE target. It also faced another fine for failing to meet standards for improvements in national curriculum test results for 11-year-olds.
A spokeswoman for CEA@Islington said the size of the loss was not yet known and would only be confirmed after the borough's national test results were finalised.
Since Islington's move two years ago, several other boroughs have employed private contractors to run their school services.
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