Last night was the termly meeting of Prestwich Arts College Governors. This is one of two local schools that I represent you as a Local Education Authority Governor.

It was a very good meeting, and the mood of the school certainly seems very good after the difficult times it went through two years ago when it was threatened by closure.

 We looked in depth at an analysis of exam results from summer 2007. In general the schools key results were up 1% on last year, 46% of children achieved the most commonly used indicator - five A*-C grades at GCSE including English and Maths. The school has plans in place for getting this level up again this year. It was particularly good to see that the “gender gap” between boys and girls fell with boys only being 11% behind girls, compared to 17% last year. Poor performance of boys has been something the school has been concerned about for a few years and it is great that things are moving in the right direction.

 There is a concern about the lack of support that Bury Council is able to provide to the growing number of non-English speaking children who are coming to the school. Prestwich has a growing Polish and East European community, many of whose children attend Prestwich Arts - but in all 27 different languages are spoken by children at the school. Obviously help is needed to get children up to speed on English, and I’ll be supporting the school taking this issue up with the Authority.

Prestwich Arts College was almost full at last year’s intake, a really positive sign when some other schools in the Borough are having problems. The school’s website has recently had a makeover and is now packed with information about the school.

 Tim