OXFORD Spires Academy had a mixed bag of results in the overall figures released today.

The Glanville Road school saw the number of students getting the benchmark of five A* to C grades including English and maths at GCSE fall nine percentage points from 58 per cent to 49 per cent.

But, as of last year, it is still the best school for helping primary school pupils who do not have good grades, to meet the expected level of progress by Key Stage 4. The school came under fire, as reported in the Oxford Mail yesterday, after it was revealed some pupils had been removed from the school roll and taught at Include Oxfordshire – an alternative education centre.

GCSE results at the school improved when that decision was made.

But Principal Sue Croft, pictured, explained that the decision was taken to help the pupils with behavioural difficulties, and in turn help other students at Spires to continue towards striving to achieve more.

Of the school’s overall performance, she said: “We had 16 students who were a few marks off in maths so that didn’t help things.

“They were borderline, so had they met it, our story could have been majorly different.”

The school expects this summer’s results to again go up – to around 53 per cent.