Find out how your school is performing
Updated on 15 January 2009
More than 370,000 children are being taught at underperforming secondary schools, according to league tables published today.
One in seven schools are failing to make sure that at least 30 per cent of their pupils achieve five good GCSEs (A*-C) including English and maths.
There are 376,976 pupils on the roll at the 440 schools that fall below this benchmark. Of these, 75,535 sat GCSEs in the summer.
As there were around 3.2m children at secondary schools in England last year, this means that more than one in 10 pupils are attending poor schools.
To find out how your child's school, and others in its area, performed click here.
Ministers announced last June that they wanted no school to be falling below this 30 per cent target by 2011.
There numbers of schools below this benchmark has dropped, previously 631 schools were falling short.
Schools that fail to meet the threshold are deemed to be underperforming and come under the Government's National Challenge initiative, which could see them face closure or being turned into an Academy if their results do not improve.
But today's statistics also show that 32 of the Government's flagship academies are failing to meet this target.
This includes academies such as The Business Academy Bexley, which opened in 2002 and Capital City Academy in London which opened in 2003.
In addition, 17 of the 63 academies reporting GCSE results were found in the league table of the worst 200 schools in England.
Schools secretary Ed Balls said yesterday that the Government was on target to see no school falling below the 30 per cent threshold by 2011.
He said: "We always said that around a third of National Challenge schools were on track and the figures published today prove this point.
"We now need to continue to concentrate on the remaining schools and ensure we are giving them the support and challenge they need to make sure no child is left behind.
"This is no time for excuses - I want every child to go to a good school and that means every school getting above 30 per cent."
