Councillor hopes educating parents will help lift Dudley's GCSE results (From Stourbridge News)

Councillor hopes educating parents will help lift Dudley's GCSE results

9:30am Monday 28th January 2013 in News

THE borough's education boss says he wants to turn his attention to educating parents to help lift Dudley's GCSE results.

New national performance tables show the number of borough teens leaving school with five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C went up two per cent from 81 to 83.2 per cent last year - more than ever before.

But the number of youngsters gaining five top grades in subjects including English and maths fell by around the same amount.

In 2011 - 58.5 per cent of students achieved five GCSEs at grades A* to C (including English and maths) but the number dropped to 56.1 per cent last year - compared to the national average of 58.8 per cent.

Dudley's overall ranking nationally for GCSE success has also plummeted 43 places from 67 to 110 - according to figures comparing local authorities across the country.

Councillor Tim Crumpton, Dudley's cabinet member for children's services, said he hopes to turn things around and boost results in the core English and maths subjects in future by putting more emphasis on educating parents.

He told the News: "There's quite a partition between schools in deprived areas as opposed to schools in better off areas.

"I think the schools do the best job they can with the children put in front of them. But how can we educate the parents of these children better?

"If we can make them more interested and able to help their children they're going to do as well as parents in more affordable areas who were probably better educated. I want to break the cycle.

"We need to ensure parents of children who struggle are better armed to help their children.

"Otherwise we're going to have the same thing happen year after year after year."

He said the fall in the success rate for English in the borough was partly due to the controversial changes to the marking system implemented nationally but he added: "I'm not making excuses for that. We still have a cycle of children in deprived areas who are not achieving as high as they could.

"It isn't about teaching, it's about trying to get the family more involved in the learning process - I think that's the truth of it."