Thurrock’s schools won fulsome praise at Wednesday (21 October) evening’s meeting of Thurrock Council.
Cllr Sue MacPherson proposed: “This Council congratulates the hard work of the borough’s schools and students for achieving Thurrock’s best ever GCSE results” – a motion that won unanimous support.
She said: “This motion does ‘what it says on the tin’ to celebrate the hard work that has gone into achieving the best results at Key Stage 4 in more than 21 years in Thurrock.
“I want to use this opportunity to thank all the secondary schools, the staff, the support, the governors and the heads, and also the students who have worked so hard to ensure they are getting good results and, of course, the parents and carers who support their children through this extremely stressful time.”
She added: “October is Thurrock Learning festival and a fantastic opportunity for us to celebrate our exceptional year-on-year improvement moving from the fourth quartile to the first quartile nationally between 2004/5 school year to 2008/9.
“This is so important because the people of Thurrock want the best and by raising performance we know the young people will be able to have access to better opportunities.
“Five A* to C passes including English and maths has seen Thurrock improve by 6.1 per cent, the 12th highest improvement in the year.
“We know we need to improve more and we won’t settle for anything but the best.
“This motion is put forward to recognize the work that has gone on to date and to ensure we keep the pressure on for improvements to come.”
Education bosses appreciated Cllr McPherson’s words.
One headteacher said: “We have always appreciated Sue’s enthusiasm and energy in promoting education in Thurrock. She always takes an opportunity to say something positive about the borough.”
Maybe the Cllr would like to comment about the poor sats results the Borough has seen for primary schools???