Joy for school facing closure; EDUCATION: Best performance boost at GCSE level.

Byline: By Lucy Lynch EDUCATION REPORTER

A NUNEATON secondary school threatened with closure has put in its best ever showing in the GCSE performance tables.

The tables, out yesterday, showed an increase of 11 per cent to 25 per cent in the proportion of pupils getting at least five GCSEs at C or above including maths and English at Manor Park School.

The school, in Beaumont Road, beat its own targets for GCSE results reaching the top 25 per cent of schools nationally for performance improvement against targets.

But the school is still below the government's target for all schools which is at least 30 per cent of pupils getting five or more GCSEs at C or above including English and maths.

Head Patsy Weighill said: "We are enormously proud of out students who achieved these results and would like to thank all the parents, staff and local authority who supported the school last year.

"The support has continued this year and our current progress tells us we will exceed our taregts by a considerable margin and be above the Government's floor target of 30 per cent A* to C including maths and English next year.

"We have worked tremendously hard on raising the aspirations of and for our students and in getting them to believe in their own potential.

Staff, parents and the wider community have all contributed to the sense of ambition within the school which has led to these results - the most improved in Warwickshire.

Plans are in place to close Manor Park and Alderman Smith School in Radnor Drive, Nuneaton, and replace them with a city academy on the Alderman Smith site.

Manor Park is opposing the plans.

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PROUD ... Patsy Weighill