THE principal of a Catholic school has hit out at the Government's new way of measuring how well schools are performing.

Sean Devlin, principal of Blessed Edward Oldcorne Catholic College, in Worcester believes the new Progress 8 measure is unfair for Catholic schools because RE, which is compulsory for his students, is not regarded as an Ebacc subject.

Schools' performances were measured by the Progress 8 measure for the first time this year.

Previously, schools were judged on the proportion of pupils scoring at least five C grades at GCSE, including in English and Maths.

Now, they have a Progress 8 figure which aims to show the progress a pupil makes from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school.

It compares pupils’ results with the achievements of other youngsters with the same prior attainment, and measures performance across eight qualifications.

However, the eight qualifications must include English and Maths, which are given double weighting, followed by the pupil's three best Ebacc subjects. These include subjects perceived as academic - including sciences, History, Geography and Modern Languages.

The final three subjects can be taken from other Government approved subjects - which include RE.

Mr Devlin said: "The Catholic schools are put at an unfair disadvantage.

"All students must study RE and that's across all Catholic schools.

"Progress 8 is a fair system if it's a level playing field for everyone.

"The new RE syllabus is as hard or maybe harder than History or Geography schemes.

"A few years ago it may have been easier but now there's no question but the Government won't include it in the Ebacc bucket."

Mr Devlin said he was determined that students should continue to choose the subjects they wanted to study rather than be swayed by the Government's focus on academic subjects.

He added: "For years they've talked about personalised learning, learning personalised to enable children to fulfil their potential.

"Now it's to meet some Government target that is not suitable for every child."

Despite his comments, Mr Devlin said he was pleased with his school's recent results.

He said: "They were a very good set of results but we always want more."