School is first choice

A DRAMATIC academic turn around at a Great Barr school has seen it jump in the numbers of pupils wanting to attend.

Details of secondary school place offers were released this week and Perry Beeches School, in Beeches Road, was oversubscribed, with 150 children nominating the school as their first choice missing out.

Each year the school has 180 secondary school places to fill and three years ago they allocated just 164 places through pupils' first and second choices but this year it could almost have filled the spaces twice over.

Headteacher Liam Nolan was pleased with the turnaround which he says made Perry Beeches the 'most oversubscribed state school in Birmingham'.

He put the success down to transforming Perry Beeches from a National Challenge school to the most improved school in the country two years ago. The school has had continued success last year, seeing nearly two thirds of pupils (64 per cent) gaining the Government benchmark figure of five GCSEs at A* to C including English and maths.

"We are absolutely delighted that Perry Beeches is oversubscribed," he said. "Three years ago we were scrabbling around to fill 180 places but this year we filled them and have another 150 waiting to get in.

"It means we will be getting finances for the work we are doing, but I feel very sad for the parents that can't get their kids in."

In Birmingham 66.5 per cent of children were offered their first choice school down 1.4 per cent on the previous year, with 94.6 per cent offered one of their preferred choices.