A SECONDARY school is holding weekend revision classes and taken on extra maths and English teachers in a bid to drive up GCSE results.

Stuart Reynolds, who is the interim headteacher of James Hornsby School in Leinster Road, Laindon, is trying to address a ten per cent drop in GCSE results including maths and English from a 36 per cent pass rate in 2011 to 26 per cent in 2012.

Mr Reynolds said: “The school has seen a dip in results and last year we were severely effected by the change in the English grade boundaries which effected all schools.

“The children at this school want to do so well and I have no doubt about that. It is a totally different school since I arrived in September and they want to achieve good results and are proud to come to school.

“To combat the decrease in the results we have been running weekend revision classes for GCSE exams and we have seen up to 80 pupils attend. “There have been significant staff changes since I started and we have taken on extra maths and English teachers to help improve the core subjects.

“That is our main aim and we have got to make sure we get that right and everything else will come together from there, that is our big focus and push and are vital to our success.”

Andy White, the headteacher of Woodlands School in Takely End, explained the main reason for the drop in results at the school last year was the predicted grades of pupils.

In 2011 the school got 43 per cent, but that fell to 39 per cent in 2012.

He added: “Each year group is different and the children did as well as they could, their predicted grades were a bit lower than the years before.”