Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, praised the achievement of Birmingham’s schools yesterday. He highlighted the reduction in the number of schools in the City that have under 30% of pupils achieving 5 A-Cs at their GCSEs, and said:

“I would say that Birmingham is one of the authorities which has really been embracing its responsibilities and driving this forward. It’s really improved.”

Achieving good results with pupils from a broad cross section of society is much harder than topping the performance tables when you have been able to pick and choose the brightest youngsters, as the King Edward’s schools can. Acocks Green’s schools  have excelled at doing well with a normal intake for some time now, and its great to see our success spreading to other parts of the City.

Its also very welcome that this achievement, under a Lib Dem / Tory run Council, is recognised by a Labour Minister. My belief is that one of the reasons why Birmingham is doing so well, is that all parties have agreed that education must be a priority for many years. Unlike some other services it hasnt been a political football or ignored in favour of more prestigious activity.  Indeed Labour did education in this City a tremendous service by appointing Tim Brighouse as our Chief Education Officer back in the 1990s and giving him the resources to improve standards. Some of the fantastic GCSE results our youngsters achieved this year go back to that move. The Progressive Partnership of Lib Dems and Tories has done a great job in improving things, but in this case it has built on sound foundations.