LABOUR councillor Peter Pinfield has criticised Droitwich Spa High School for failing to achieve the national average in its GCSE results.

But the school has defended its performance saying the statistics did not reveal the school's real improvements.

The school gained a 50 per cent pass rate of five or more GCSEs above grade C in 2004. The national average is 55 per cent.

"I do not know if the parents of Droitwich Spa High School feel that this is acceptable. But clearly, other schools in the county and across the Midlands achieve much higher results, and we must ask ourselves why," said Coun Pinfield.

Coun Pinfield said that although there had been a slight improvement in schools across Worcestershire, he felt they were "coasting" along.

"The levels of achievement are not good enough when compared with some other Midland education authorities," he said.

He is now calling on headteachers and governors to set their sights higher.

"I have not been a governor at Droitwich High School for many years now, so I may not be in a position of knowing all the facts," he said. "But the school is the second largest in the county and has the lowest numbers of special needs students.

"It attracts the highest calibre of staff, has some excellent students, and a very good parent support group. It also has sports excellence status, a good environment and resources to match. So why are this year's results so disappointing?

"Should we not, as a community, be expecting much higher results?"

Headteacher at the school Allan Foulds argued that the school was improving, especially in terms of its value added measure.

"The raw statistic of 50 per cent does not reveal the encouraging fact that the school's performance in this area has improved between 2003 and 2004, in relation to Governors' and LEA set targets," he said.

He added: "The school's improving performance reflects the quality of our staff and their support for an excellent Year 11 group last year.

"The future looks very promising for an increasingly well resourced high school serving its community with parents' support.

"We will always work to achieve challenging targets in the interest of every one of our students."