One in five secondary schools face closure as they fail to meet government targets

A fifth of secondary schools failed to meet Gordon Brown's demand that at least 30 per cent of their pupils get five good GCSE passes in exams including English and maths.

The 639 schools with 545,000 pupils face being shut down or taken over by successful schools unless results improve by 2012.

• CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW YOUR SCHOOL FARED

Nearly 350,000 pupils - a majority of GCSE candidates - failed to achieve the five target grades last summer.

Today's tables show how schools have sidelined English, maths and science in favour of courses seen as easier.

Schools had been able to improve their positions in GCSE league tables with dubious noncore subjects and computing qualifications. But, since last year, they have been forced to include English, maths and now science in their results.

As a result, schools which neglected literacy and numeracy have seen up to 69 percentage points wiped off their results.

Leigh Technology Academy in Dartford, Kent, scores 93 per cent under the old system but just 24 per cent when English and maths are included.

Meanwhile St Augustine's Catholic College in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, saw its results plunge

from 84 per cent under the general measure to 3 per cent when science is included.

Today's results also show that:

Grammar and secondary moderns are better than comprehensives at improving results

26 flagship Government academies were among the 639 schools failing to meet Mr Brown's target

58 per cent of schools failed to bring at least half of children to the target GCSE standard

The school with the worst results in England was Parklands High School, in Speke, Liverpool, where just 1 per cent of pupils achieved five good passes including English and maths.

Headmaster Alan Smithies said the results were 'devastating' and blamed a shortage of English and maths teachers.

The worst for truancy was Islington Green, in North London, which famously was snubbed by Tony Blair for his own children. Pupils missed 10.9 per cent of lessons. The most improved school, Matthew Arnold in Staines, Surrey, set pupils challenges in the style of Alan Sugar on TV's The Apprentice to help transform GCSE results.

The top-performing school last summer was Wycombe High School, a grammar in Buckinghamshire where all 194 GCSE pupils gained five good grades including in the two core subjects.

Schools Minister Jim Knight said the number of schools failing to meet Mr Brown's target had fallen from 670 last year.

But he added: 'We owe it to parents to make sure lowperforming schools turn around quickly.

'I share parents' impatience for improvement not just in lowachieving schools, but in all schools.'

David Laws, Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, said the Government's targets were 'hopelessly unambitious'.

AND WHY ETON SCORED ZERO

Eton is bottom of today's school league tables because the Government does not recognise "tougher" alternatives to GCSEs.

It is among a dozen leading fee-paying schools which scored zero. Their use of international GCSEs rather than the domestic equivalent was ruled not to count toward the Government's key measure of performance.

Eton technically came last among 4,150 state and independent schools in England because it had the highest number of GCSE entrants scoring zero.

Other schools also scoring nothing but entering fewer pupils included Harrow, Winchester, Manchester Grammar and Dulwich College.

Bernard Trafford, a teachers' leader, said the scoring was "lunatic" and "meaningless".

See how your school fared in the league tables