LEAGUE TABLES SPECIAL: DESPITE woeful funding, today's league tables show that most schools in Swindon have shown a significant improvement on last year's GCSE results.

Kingsdown School in Stratton has been named in the top 99 most improved schools in the country between 1998 and 2001, Hreod Parkway in Moredon has recorded an eight per cent increase despite failing its Ofsted inspection this year and Bradon Forest in Purton has recorded its best ever results, putting it top of our league table for the town.

Headlands School, while still recording the lowest pass rate in the borough, has also corrected its gradual decline by showing a three per cent increase in its pass rate.

Other schools showing an improvement are St Joseph's in Stratton, Commonweal in Old Town and Wootton Bassett School.

Highworth Warneford has retained its impressive 65 per cent pass rate, Dorcan Technology College has dipped by just one per cent despite difficult circumstances and Wroughton's Ridgeway School has fallen slightly to 59 per cent.

Overall the results show an improvement for Swindon's average pass rate from 44.1 per cent to 44.5 per cent, although the gap between Swindon and the national average of 50 per cent has widened by 0.4 per cent.

That places Swindon 80th out of the 150 local education authorities in the country, an improvement from last year's 88th position.

Kingsdown headteacher David Williams said that he was delighted with his school's consistent improvement over the last four years. The school is ranked as 55th most improved school in the country, although it would be 48th if the Government had recorded updated figures after a re-mark of the school's French exam papers.

The published figures show this year's pass rate at 59 per cent, when it should actually be 60 per cent. That is 20 per cent more than in 1998 and 30 per cent higher than in 1994.

Mr Williams said: "We had a target of 55 per cent for this year and they surprised us by getting 60 per cent, which was beyond our dreams. It's down to a lot of hard work by the staff but also due to our policy of involving parents in everything. We bring every single one of them in to discuss how they can help their child progress and those meetings are dynamite.

"When you think that Kingsdown is the lowest funded school in Swindon and Swindon is the lowest funded unitary authority in the country, that can't be bad really."

Hreod Parkway has achieved excellent results following 12 months of turmoil. Along with Headlands, the school had to send pupils home for one afternoon a week last winter due to an acute teacher shortage crisis.

It then failed its Ofsted inspection in April, but still managed to record an improvement on last year's 23 per cent pass rate by rising to 31 per cent.

Headteacher Andrew Fleet said that while it is still much lower than the town's average, he is delighted to have shown such improvement.

He said: "We have improved across the board and what is particularly pleasing is our 'value-added' score, which shows we have really improved in terms of how much pupils progress from when they join the school.

"We've still got a long way to go but I think we will show a gradual improvement towards the Swindon average over the next few years."

Bradon Forest deputy headteacher, Mike Gourlay, said he was delighted to see the school take top spot in the tables with its best ever pass rate, which went up from 60 to 65 per cent.

He said: "We're very pleased with this year's pupils, who have achieved well at both ends of the ability scale and we hope to at least match it next year."

Headlands headteacher John Wells said: "The exam results show an improvement on the achievements of last year and a number of students have achieved exceptional grades. We are particularly pleased with the 'value-added' results, which show the school has enabled all students whatever their starting ability to exceed expectations.

"I am confident the school is improving and I look forward to even greater success in 2002."