Stop calling us failures, says top head made a Sir

Sir William Atkinson, 58, is head of Phoenix School near the White City Estate in Shepherd's Bush, a school classed as among eight in England facing the most "exceptionally challenging circumstances".

Named last year by the Evening Standard as one of London's most influential people, he is today celebrating his knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Sir William told Schools Secretary Ed Balls to "change the rhetoric" about failing schools. He made his comments after Mr Balls said that 638 schools where fewer than 30 per cent of pupils achieved at least five A* to C-grades at GCSE had to improve or face being closed or turned into city academies.

Sir William, who was the inspiration for Lenny Henry's headteacher character in BBC One drama Hope and Glory, said that GCSE performance was just one measure of a school's effectiveness and to focus on a single indicator was "demoralising" for staff.

Many of the 638 had excellent Ofsted reports or scored highly on the Government's "value-added" measure for the progress they helped pupils make, he added.

"It is incumbent on Ed Balls to change the rhetoric, to listen more to schools. What Mr Balls needs to do is to work closely with those very good people who exist in the system who are willing to work on the same agenda," he added.

About two thirds of pupils at Phoenix, which was judged by Ofsted to be "outstanding" in its latest report published in January, have learning difficulties or disabilities.

Despite this, 43 per cent of Phoenix's GCSE pupils scored five Cs or more last year and Sir William said the key to raising standards was to have the highest expectations of every pupil.

"If you have the highest expectations for young people and you are prepared to put the appropriate resources behind those young people and align that with very good teachers, there is no reason why you shouldn't succeed, irrespective of the circumstances from which your pupils are drawn." He has for some years been consulted by ministers on how to raise standards in the inner city and has also been a leading voice warning of under-achievement by white working class boys.