Truancy tumbling at text message academy

Truancy rates have tumbled by two thirds at the first failing school to be turned into a city academy, a report reveals today.

The Evening Standard has learned that education watchdog Ofsted believes Greig City Academy in Hornsey is "improving rapidly".

Two years ago, we exposed the chaos and violence that gripped Greig, the first of the Government's flagship academies, in an undercover investigation. But, in a report to be published next month, Ofsted said: "Early problems have been overcome and a learning culture is being established. The adults and the vast majority of pupils work together."

Ofsted said that Greig's truancy rate fell from 6.6 per cent of term time missed in 2002 to 1.99 per cent in the autumn term of 2004. The school uses electronic registration and sends a text message to parents if their children fail to turn up.

But Ofsted has told the school that it must continue to improve performance in every year group, particularly in English and maths. The report said: "Standards in English are too low at all key stages. They are depressed by low levels of literacy, limited vocabularies and too little reading for pleasure."

City academies are independent schools that are not allowed to charge fees and which are funded mainly by the taxpayer at a cost of around £25 million apiece.