MORE scrutiny is needed after a school was found to have moved a large number of children out which could have boosted its league table results, academics said.  

Darwen Aldridge Community Academy (DACA) sent 35 students over two year groups in 2013/14 and 2014/15 to alternative schools, the seventh most in the country.

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It's GCSE pass rate could have been 40.3 per cent rather than 56.5 per cent when results were recalculated, placing it second nationally for the size of the impact, researcher Education Datalab claimed.

The data was strongly disputed by academy bosses who said they have ‘never manipulated a league table performance’.

Figures also show 39 students left DACA to join the academy’s Enterprise Studio in 2014/15.

Brendan Loughran, executive principal, said student numbers have grown since the school opened in 2008 so the suggestion they were moving people off roll was ‘not true’.

He said the data also included students who were on the roll but had not attended the school for a variety of reasons.

“DACA was subject to high levels of student mobility in and out when the data was analysed,” he said.

“When you break it down you can see a significant number of the pupils that left had actually arrived after the start of year seven. They were already moving between schools.”

He said students sometimes moved to alternative provision, referral units or onto a year 11 college course.

“What we have always done is worked in the best interest of the child. We have never manipulated a performance in a league table,” he said.

He added student movement to the studio school was driven by parental choice.

Philip Nye, Education Datalab researcher, said in many cases the use of alternative provision is the right thing for both the child and the school.

“But when large numbers of pupils leave a mainstream school this can have a very flattering effect on the school’s league table results. We therefore think there needs to be scrutiny of those cases where a school uses alternative provision much more than other schools do.”

Cllr Dave Harling, Blackburn with Darwen’s executive member for schools and education, said it was worth noting the figures fall significantly the following year.

He said previously academies were not obliged to tell the council when a pupil left unless it was a permanent exclusion, but this has now changed and they will be able to carry out further checks to find out where a pupil has gone.