ANALYSIS By Mike Baker

Schools will have to focus on GCSE-level attainment

In his first big set-piece education speech as prime minister this week, he began by praising his old school motto ("I will try my utmost").

Although mottos are now associated with a 1950's world of school songs and Latin emblazoned blazers, the PM wants them dusted down and brought off the shelf because they embody high aspirations.

Not that all mottos will do. I doubt whether Gordon Brown would welcome schools emulating the fictional St Trinian's whose motto, "in flagrante delicto", roughly translates as "caught in the act".

However, I suspect another new motto will now be popping into headteachers' minds, namely "I will meet the government's target".

While this is perhaps not the most uplifting motto, it may be a sensible response to Mr Brown's threat to close schools that fail to get 30% of their pupils to achieve five good GCSEs including maths and English.

This was the big headline from the speech. As The Sun, amongst others, put it: "Brown: I'll shut failing schools".

This was, I am sure, the headline the government sought, even though the tenor of the speech was much more measured than this, offering support as well as punishment.

But is the big stick - or is it the "clunking fist"? - approach really the right way forward?

Named and shamed

Let's just recall that none of this is particularly new, despite the big media response to the speech.

After all, we have been here before, and more than once.

Back in 1997, the freshly minted Blair government "named and shamed" 18 schools. They were warned they would close unless they improved quickly.

Not surprisingly, they struggled to get better. The adverse publicity did not exactly help attract pupils from highly motivated families. Some of the schools on the list were indeed shut down.

Some time later, the architects of this strategy accepted it had not worked. The fierce focus on a small number of named schools was just too intense.

The next step was to target schools where fewer than 20% of pupils achieved five GCSEs at A*-C.

The headline-catching announcement back then was the new target for no school still to be below this minimum level by 2004.

Now the requirements have been ratcheted up a notch further.

Prior attainment

The trouble with targets back then, and still today, is that they are imprecise instruments.

A school achieving below the GCSE target may well be doing a very good job. It all depends on its pupil intake.

For example, there are schools where the great majority of pupils do not have English as a first language.

Or where their school population is constantly changing because of migration patterns.

Or where the great majority have arrived from primary school with well below expected levels in maths and English

Such schools may be achieving great things with these pupils. They may attract glowing Ofsted reports.

They may do well in league tables based on the progress pupils make rather than their "raw" results.

Aspirations

Yet all these measures will, it seems, count for nought if they fall below the 30% target for five GCSEs including maths and English.

Is it really right for performance on a single measure, like the one Gordon Brown proposed, to condemn a school to closure?

I suspect many of the schools that fall below the government's new target have the highest ambitions for all their students

Of course, it is right to have high aspirations for all pupils. Indeed, I suspect many of the schools that fall below the government's new target have the highest ambitions for all their students.

Yet, with this new all-important target, there is a danger that they will be cowed into thinking that only one measure really counts.

So a school could decide to stop focusing on the progress made by all its pupils and instead concentrate just on those who are borderline on the A*-C measurement.

Such a school could ensure that 31% of its pupils met the target. They could then breathe a sigh of relief, tick the target, and avoid closure.

But what about the other 69% who may still be achieving well below their potential?

This school may be doing less well than a neighbouring school where the focus might be on achieving progress for everyone.

This second school might feasibly come top in the league tables for either "value added" or "progress" but still face closure because only 29% managed a grade C in English, maths and three other subjects.

A target like this is great for winning headlines. In the real world, though, it is not sophisticated enough to distinguish between a good school and a poor one.

A "good" school is one that is doing well by its pupils, ensuring they learn as fast as they can whatever their starting point

Once again, the government - in its eagerness to send out a message about intolerance of failure - has picked a single, blunt instrument to attack schools.