Burnley school's GCSE pass rate increase among best for England

‘DELIGHTED’ Sally Cryer ‘DELIGHTED’ Sally Cryer

A HIGH school in Burnley has been praised after recording one of the top increases in its GCSE results in the country.

Unity College has increases its rate of A* to C grades for 2011 by nearly 20 per cent, according to latest figures.

Just under five years ago the Towneley Holmes Road super-school was served with a ‘notice to improve’.

But now a leading educationalist says the school has notched up a ‘stunning achievement’ with its good exam performance.

Sue Williamson, the chief executive of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, said: “Unity College has proved itself to be one of the best schools in the country at improving GCSE outcomes for their students.

These results are a testament to the hard work of the students, teachers and leadership team there and a vindication of their beliefs in high expectations, good teaching and ambition for every young person.”

In December inspectors from the government education watchdog Ofsted also flagged up the school as ‘improving’.

Headteacher Sally Cryer said the school was pleased with the results.

She said: “We are delighted to be nationally recognised for our year on year improvements in our GCSE results and we expect significant further improvements.

“We are very proud to be one of the most-improved schools in the country and this is due to the dedication, and relentless drive to give every child the best possible eduction and for every student to be ‘the very best they can be’.”

Comments(14)

Stuart Farquar says...
4:14pm Fri 6 Jul 12

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein

Truth will out says...
5:23pm Fri 6 Jul 12

Gimmick results for gimmick exams.
And everybody knows it.

Pendlesider says...
10:38pm Fri 6 Jul 12

I'd hardly call getting an extra 1 in 5 to achieve better grades a ‘stunning achievement’ . then again when you're at the bottom it's not difficult to be seen as an improved school - the only way is up anyway. The question is, if they were at the bottom to start with, how many other 'schools' were with them? same old twaddle, tired of hearing it, sick to death of league tables, just becomed a gimmick as mentioned by another commentor.

Graham Hartley says...
10:56pm Fri 6 Jul 12

Stuart Farquar wrote:
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein
But he didn't say that knowledge has no importance.

Graham Hartley says...
11:14pm Fri 6 Jul 12

It's the season for awards in recognition of achievement in education, but why is the season so late? The GCSE examination results are released in August each year; must it take until the following summer to extract this information?

Love Rovers Hate Venkys says...
3:07am Sat 7 Jul 12

People in Burnley have GCSE's? Give over!

davidinburnley says...
8:52pm Sat 7 Jul 12

Love Rovers Hate Venkys wrote:
People in Burnley have GCSE's? Give over!
It's true. Some of us even have A' levels and degrees.
I guess from your user name you must be from Blackburn - therefore I will explain those two unfamilar terms for you...
A' levels are gained when one studies a subject at an advanced level at a big building known as a college.
Degrees are even higher than that - and the buildings one studies in for a degree are known as universities. We have one of those in Burnley ;)

Graham Hartley says...
11:27pm Sat 7 Jul 12

davidinburnley wrote:
Love Rovers Hate Venkys wrote: People in Burnley have GCSE's? Give over!
It's true. Some of us even have A' levels and degrees. I guess from your user name you must be from Blackburn - therefore I will explain those two unfamilar terms for you... A' levels are gained when one studies a subject at an advanced level at a big building known as a college. Degrees are even higher than that - and the buildings one studies in for a degree are known as universities. We have one of those in Burnley ;)
Rather a shame that UcLan's Burnley campus website displayed a blank page on its 'courses' link when I checked; I found the courses after a period; others may give up.

Is it correct to claim that Burnley has a university? The University of Central Lancashire has a campus there - though the link to 'campuses' from www.uclan.ac.uk doesn't work.

davidinburnley says...
10:41am Sun 8 Jul 12

I was merely pointing out to our 'friend' from that town that used to be in Lancashire, that folk in Burnley are perhaps not as 'thick' as his prejudice would have him think.

Graham Hartley says...
1:25pm Sun 8 Jul 12

Indeed; in both towns one can gather evidence for all sorts of claims. For example, I claim that people abroad in both town centres on Friday nights are not much good at anagrams.

Stuart Farquar says...
3:50pm Sun 8 Jul 12

Graham Hartley wrote:
Stuart Farquar wrote: Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein
But he didn't say that knowledge has no importance.
His quote is quite obviously wasted on you as your from Blackbum

Graham Hartley says...
9:45pm Sun 8 Jul 12

Stuart Farquar wrote:
Graham Hartley wrote:
Stuart Farquar wrote: Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein
But he didn't say that knowledge has no importance.
His quote is quite obviously wasted on you as your from Blackbum
I derive such fun from correspondence of this sort that I cannot think of any of it as wasted.

Graham Hartley says...
10:02pm Sun 8 Jul 12

Pleased to see that the UClan website works well today. UClan doesn't appear in Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World University Rankings. Reason to forgive those who don't think it's much good?

Graham Hartley says...
10:06pm Sun 8 Jul 12

For UClan please read UcLan - too much network study recently.

click2find

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