A headteacher has defended his school's ability to take on a catchment area which parents have said will send it into decline.

Stuart McLaughlin, head of Falmer High in Lewes Road, said the school was looking forward to continuing its work with the communities of Moulsecoomb and Bevendean in north Brighton.

Critics of the catchment area system for secondary school admissions introduced in Brighton and Hove said the school would go downhill if it was restricted to taking pupils solely from the two estates as planned.

They said the catchment will involve the largest number of pupils qualifying for free school meals any school in the city has had since the closure of Comart in East Brighton in 2005. The receipt of free school meals is used as an indication of poverty.

Mr McLaughlin said: "I think people are underestimating us. We already take 85 per cent of our pupils from Moulsecoomb and Bevendean and we have no problems with it.

"I get annoyed by the way people demonise these areas. I meet a lot of parents from the area and they are good people who take an interest in their children's education."

Falmer's GCSE pass rate has improved in the past four years.

In summer 2003, the percentage of its pupils achieving five GCSEs at A* to C grades was 21. Last summer that figure had risen to 34 per cent.

That rate fell to 17 per cent this year when the Government began to include English and maths in the statistics but was still an improvement of five per cent since 2003.

Falmer also had the second highest "value-added"

score in the city this summer, showing the improvement in its pupils between the ages of 11 and 16.

It scored 1,016.2 on a scale where 1,000 is classed as good. Only Cardinal Newman Catholic School in Upper Drive, Hove, scored higher.

Under the admissions system used for the past few years, Falmer has taken in pupils from across Brighton and Hove and has tried to develop links with schools in Elm Grove, Hanover and Queen's Park.

Those areas have been included in a new joint catchment for Dorothy Stringer and Varndean despite Falmer's governors calling for their own zone to be extended to incorporate some of them.

For a map of the catchment areas, click here.

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