Voyager Academy only secondary school in Peterborough not to meet new Government standard

The one school - Voyager Academy - is the only one of 11 in the city falling below a new Government floor target that measures pupils’ progress and achievement over eight GCSE subjects.

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

Instead, ministers have introduced a new headline measure called “Progress 8”. This 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.

A school is below the government standard if it scores below -0.5.

The Voyager Academy scored -0.90 in the new measure. The average score in Peterborough was -0.03.

The Voyager Academy has been taken over by the Thomas Deacon Academy Education Trust this month, in a bid to transform the fortunes of the school.

Thomas Deacon Academy scored -0.28 in the Progress 8 measure.

The Voyager transferred from its original sponsors, The Cam Academy Trust, to Thomas Deacon Academy Education Trust in January 2017

However, there were some big success stories in the city, with The Kings School scoring 0.55, Jack Hunt School scoring 0.33 and St John Fisher scoring 0.46.

Peterborough’s average of -0.03 was the second lowest score in the east of England - ahead of Central Bedfordshire’s -0.07. Peterborough’s score is also the same as the national state funded average.