The wave of the Government's flagship schools replaced struggling secondaries in Leeds, Sheffield and Barnsley in September 2006 but their first set of GCSE marks put them in the bottom 200 schools in the country, according to league tables published today.
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League tables in full »Hear education correspondent John Roberts debate the issues-------------------------------------------
The league tables also reveal that more than 300,000 teenagers left school across the country without a good grounding in the three Rs last year.
Overall, 46.7 per cent of the 649,000 pupils in Year 11 scored five C grades or better in subjects including maths and English in 2007. It meant about 346,000 pupils failed to make the C grade target in five subjects including English and maths.
One in five secondary schools is failing to make sure at least 30 per cent of their pupils score at least five C grades in GCSE subjects including English and maths.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has set a target for no school to be in this position by 2012.
Nationally 17 of the 40 academies reporting GCSE results were found in the league table of the worst 200 state schools in England.
David Young Community Academy in Leeds, Sheffield Springs Academy, Sheffield Park Academy and Barnsley Academy all feature in the table with more than three-quarters of their pupils failing to reach five A* to C in last summer's GCSEs.
Despite that the principals at two of the academies said their schools had made major improvements.
David Young Community Academy, sponsored by the Church of England Diocese of Ripon and Leeds, replaced Agnes Stewart CE School and Braim Wood High School for Boys in 2006.
The academy's principal Ros McMullen said: "Of course we are among the bottom schools. That is why we have opened as an academy. In the previous year Agnes Stewart pupils achieved 11 per cent five A* to C, including English and maths, and Braim Wood pupils 20 per cent.
"If we look at our pupils from Agnes Stewart this year they achieved 17 per cent while the Braim Wood pupils achieved 29 per cent.
"This shows an improvement but we have only had these pupils for 28 weeks in the last year of their GCSEs."
Ms McMullen said within five years, once pupils had completed their full education at the school, she expected the academy to be achieving better than national average GCSE results.
Barnsley Academy's principal David Berry also defended the performance of his school, which opened in 2006 to replace Elmhirst School and is sponsored by Christian charity, the United Learning Trust.
Although the school finished in the bottom 200 for GCSE results it was also named in the top 200 schools for adding value to their pupils' performance and received a letter of congratulations from Schools Minister Jim Knight.
Mr Berry said: "The last set of GCSE results available for Elmhirst, in 2005, had seven per cent of pupils achieving five A* to C, including English and maths. We achieved 20 per cent.
"Our results are not at a level I would want, but they are at a starting point which is better than might have been expected.
"If you asked me would I be happy if our results were at 20 per cent next year I would say no."
In Yorkshire three education authorities, York, North Yorkshire and the East Riding bettered the national average. The remaining 10 authorities saw less than 46.7 per cent of pupils achieve five A* to C at GCSE.
Hull was the worst performer in the region, followed by Barnsley which sank to fifth from bottom, and Bradford, which also fell to 14th bottom out of 150 authorities.
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