THREE north Essex schools have been named as among almost 300 underperforming schools across England.

Statistics show nearly one in ten secondary schools are falling below a new Government target which measures pupils’ progress and achievement.

For the first time, schools have not been judged on the proportion of pupils scoring at least five A* to C grades at GCSE including in English and maths.

Instead, education ministers have introduced a new measure called Progress 8, which looks at the progress a pupil makes from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school including looking at their achievement in eight GCSE subjects.

Harwich and Dovercourt High School Harwich was one of the 282 identified as under-performing, along with Tendring Enterprise Studio School, in Clacton, and the Honywood Community Science School, in Coggeshall.

Department for Education data reveals huge differences in children’s access to a good secondary school, an issue that is likely to fuel fresh debate about under-performance in some parts of the country.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said the figures showed the hard work of teachers and pupils is leading to higher standards.

But headteachers warned the results had been achieved against a national backdrop of a funding and recruitment crisis.

Harwich and Dovercourt High School headteacher Rob Garrett said: "All the staff at HDHS were disappointed with the school’s 2016 examination results.

"Like many schools in similar circumstances it has been hard to adjust to the demands of an ever changing examination system.

"The reduction of coursework grades and an increased reliance on terminal examinations with annual revisions compounds difficulties.

"The school has improved enormously over recent years due to the hard work and dedication of its staff and students.

"The improvements throughout the whole school were acknowledged only in June by Ofsted.

"The Harwich community were proud, not only of our ‘Good’ judgement, but by the broad acknowledgement of the high standards throughout.

"However, we know we have to prepare our students differently in order to succeed.

"The Governors have recently sought to seek further support from the Sigma Trust and we are confident that this will result in the examination improvement we all expect."

Speaking about Progress 8, Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “It better reflects the fact that children start their secondary school education at different levels of academic ability and it aims to judge schools on the progress that all their pupils make, rather than an arbitrary measure of GCSE attainment.

“However, Progress 8 has teething problems, and must be treated with some caution. Its biggest weakness is that the score of a school is disproportionately affected by as few as one or two pupils recording anomalous results."