Secondary schools 'fail brightest children'

Many comprehensives are failing Britain's brightest children, new research shows today.

Pupils who finish primary school at the top of the class fall back alarmingly because many secondaries fail to develop their talents.

Able children under-achieve because classmates cannot keep up with them.

The findings come from a study commissioned by an inf luential government adviser. They highlight the problems facing Education Secretary Ruth Kelly in trying to improve the worst schools.

Professor David Jesson of York was asked by Sir Cyril Taylor, of the Specialist Schools Trust, to track bright pupils through comprehensive, grammar and private schooling.

He looked at 28,000 children who at 11 had scored highest in national curriculum English and maths tests, and found their GCSE scores last year dropped according to how many bright children there were in their schools.

If only one from the most able five per cent was in the school they achieved fewer than four A*s or As, all but destroying their chances of getting into a top university.

But pupils did better at highachieving comprehensives than grammars.