MORE than 300,000 teenagers left secondary school last year without five good GCSE grades, including English and maths, national figures show.

One in seven schools are failing to ensure that 30 per cent of their pupils achieve at least five C grades, including maths and English.

Ministers announced last June that they wanted no school to be in this position by 2011.

Today’s statistics show that 440 schools, including four in Bolton are currently falling short of this target.

The Bolton schools are Harper Green in Farnworth, Hayward School in Great Lever, Ladybridge in Deane, and Withins School in Breightmet.

Schools that fail to meet this target are judged to be under-performing and fall under the Government's controversial National Challenge initiative.

They could face closure or be turned into an Academy if their results do not improve. Withins will become an academy in September and Hayward has already been turned into the Essa Academy.

Today's figures show that 47.6 per cent of the 653,045 pupils who took the exams last summer achieved five or more good GCSE's (A*-C) including English and maths.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls said: "This is no time for excuses — I want every child to go to a good school and that means every school getting above per cent.

"We are putting in the extra resources to help heads reach this and local authorities will shortly be announcing their plans to make sure all schools reach this target by 2011."

Schools Minister Jim Knight added: “We now have 65 per cent of children achieving five good GCSE passes in any subject and 48 per cent of children getting five good passes including English and maths — a decade ago these figures were sitting at a lowly 45 and 35 per cent, respectively."