A SECONDARY school has defended its performance in the government's new progression ratings.

Honywood Community Science School, Coggeshall, received the lowest Progress 8 score of any mainstream school in the district with a mark of -0.58.

This means that on average each student lost more than half a grade from what they were predicted when leaving primary school.

However the school explains the low score by the fact that they let their students take their exams early in November - a practice that most schools stopped once they were told that the first exam would count towards the Progress 8 figure.

The school said on their Facebook page: "We had spent years developing a learner and learning-centred curriculum where learners were given real choice about their studies.

"We thus saw it as imperative that we continued to allow learners to sit exams when they wanted to, even where it was going to cause us a problem in Government performance tables.

"In our view you don’t need to play games with the exam system to get great outcomes.

"What you need is for learners to be trust and study hard, being superbly supported by their families and their teachers who have the highest expectations for them.

"Where you create a curriculum that provides for this, as we have done, you don’t just get great exam results, you see young people develop great character, building attributes that will see them succeed in life, not just in exams and that is what we are trying to secure for our young people."

In contrast the schools Attainment 8 score was 48.5, higher than many others in North Essex - 43 percent of students also achieved an A* to C in English and Mathematics.

Mr Mason said: "We are so proud of our young people who not only leave us with fantastic qualifications, but also with the broadest set of attributes and the strongest characters of any group we have seen attend the school.

"We are confident that they will go on to make excellent future employees, parents, citizens and in many cases community and business leaders, playing an active part in their community as they did during their five years at our school.”

The schools says that its final figures, after the summer exams were the best in its history with 70 percent pass rate at A* to C.