Turnaround in results sees disadvantaged Barnsley pupils perform above national average

The transformation has happened over a relatively short period and has been credited to a range of factors.

Among the most significant have been the council’s decision to pump £1bn into its ‘building schools for the future’ project which saw its secondary schools re-invented as a smaller network of ‘advanced learning centres’ in new buildings.

Many of those, including what had previously been poorly performing secondary schools, are now operated by independent academy trusts, which in most cases have transformed results.

Although work is still in progress to improve standards in two of the borough’s academies, Nick Bowen, principal of Horizon college told councillors results had been transformed.

He said: “There are a couple of schools which have disadvantaged children getting better results than the national average.”

He accepted there was ‘one area’ of town where work was still needed to improve the standard of education available to children and said: “There are ten secondary schools in Barnsley, eight are either average or well above average.

There are still two below average.

“Just think where we will be when we get those two schools sorted out.

“My ambition is that you should be able to go to your local school and get a really good deal.

“There is one area where you can go to that school and you are not getting a good deal.”

Barnsley operates a ‘schools alliance’ which aims to ensure all schools - both in and outside local authority control - work together to bring improvements forward.

That is seen as one of the reasons for the town’s strong performance.

Last year 62.5 per cent of pupils passed English language, literature and maths, compared to 61 per cent in 2018.

The national figure in 2019 was 59.5 per cent an elsewhere in South Yorkshire Doncaster achieved 61.9 per cent, Rotherham 58.8 per cent and Sheffield 59.2 per cent.