A £70 million super-school in Telford has challenged the Government claiming it was wrongly named on a list of underperforming schools.

The principal of Hadley Learning Community, Dr Gill Eatough, has now written to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Secretary of State for Education over the way the system is operated.

She had no idea HLC was named in the report until she was contacted by the media.

But it seems the school has won the battle and that the method for gathering statistics for exam results may be changed.

Last month, HLC was among hundreds of schools nationwide, and six locally, given an ultimatum to improve results or face being closed or turned into academies.

Schools were targeted because, Government officials claimed less than 30 per cent of pupils achieved at least five good GCSE grades, including maths and English.

But HLC is disputing those figures, saying some pupils’ results were not taken into account.

Dr Eatough said in a statement: “Hadley Learning Community was opened as a major PFI project in January 2007 and was inspected in January 2008.

“At this inspection, the results at Key Stage 4 met the Government’s floor targets.

“We have since discovered that the reason for us being placed on the national challenge list is because only the results of 15-year-old pupils were taken into account.

“Three of our students who took their GCSEs were not aged 15 and their results were not counted.

“We currently have approximately 100 students in Year 10 and 11 so every change, however seemingly small, affects our figures.”

Dr Eatough added: “We have received indications back that this method will be changed.”

Dr Eatough has written to parents to explain the situation.

By Lisa Rowley