'No excuses' on school results

Almost one in five secondary schools in England have been given a "no excuses" warning to improve their GCSE exam results or face closure, reported The BBC.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls has launched a £400m drive to raise results in the lowest-performing 638 schools.

An extra 70 academies, costing £195m, will spearhead this reform, so that almost one in 10 secondary schools will have academy status by September 2010.

Academies could "break the link between poverty and attainment", said Mr Balls.

The National Challenge, launched by education ministers on Tuesday, requires every secondary school in England to have achieved the benchmark of five good GCSEs including English and maths within three years.

There are 27 secondary schools in Birmingham, 33 in Kent and 13 in Manchester facing this exams ultimatum.

The highest proportion of schools needing to improve is in Bristol - where almost two out of three schools are below the required threshold.

Local authorities have been ordered to come up with detailed plans to improve these schools - but Mr Balls made it clear that local education authorities as well as individual schools could be taken over and replaced if they failed to deliver.

"I don't want to see excuses about poor performance - I want to see clear plans to raise standards," said Mr Balls.