South Gloucestershire secondary schools must do better – and they’ve been told how. An education commission called in by the Children & Young People committee has made a series of recommendations for how they can better serve young people.

South Glos’ secondary schools underperform against national measures, and A-level pupils were recently ranked 119 in the country.

The poor school performance had been masked under the old minority Cabinet system – but after the council switched to decisions by committees, the information came out. In March 2013, the committee called for help, as Tory leader John Calway took personal responsibility for letting down a generation of children.

Cllr Ruth Davis (LD, Yate) said: “Our main focus has to be the opportunities and development of the young people, not the schools or the staff.

“The same children are doing well in primary, but we’re failing them at secondary – why?

“Schools want to stay open, you can understand, but they are not serving the young people as well as they should be. If these recommendations would help the young people, we should be getting on with them as soon as possible.”

Committee chairman Cllr Ian Blair (LD, Yate) said: “I hope our schools take real note of this, I hope it is being distributed to all our schools. They will buy into it, they will see there is a need for change.”