Eleven secondary schools in Sussex have been threatened with closure unless exam results dramatically improve.

Headteachers and education leaders are being invited to a Whitehall summit by Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, in an attempt to head off the closure threat.

Mr Balls is targeting 638 secondaries across England which fall short of 30% of pupils achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and maths.

Last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned that any school failing that test by 2011 would be shut down or taken over by another school.

Eleven of the 638 are in Sussex. They are Patcham High and Falmer High, in Brighton. In East Sussex they include Hillcrest School in Hastings, The Causeway School in Eastbourne, Tideway School in Newhaven, Filsham Valley School and The Grove, both in St Leonards, and Eastbourne Technology College.

Those in West Sussex are King's Manor Community College, in Shoreham, Thomas Bennett Community College in Crawley and Boundstone Community College in Lancing. The threatened closure of Falmer High comes as new plans are already being considered to replace the school with the proposed Falmer Academy.

At the Whitehall meeting, expected in June, the county's education authorities will be urged to investigate possible routes to rapid improvement, including:

  • "Intensive support" - such as "buying in" expert help in English, maths, or behaviour.
  • Direct partnership with a better performing school.
  • A federation - where a strong school is funded to help a weaker one develop a "culture of excellence".
  • A trust - pairing with a business or charity, giving it powers to appoint staff and set an admissions policy.
  • An academy - where a firm, university or charity directly sponsors the school, providing a slice of the start-up cost.
  • A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families confirmed that closure was one option for schools failing to reach the 30% threshold - but only as a "last resort".

A £200 million pot has been set aside to raise standards in struggling secondary schools, with a particular focus on the 638 falling short of the GCSE target. At the same time, local authorities were told to put together an action plan for each lowattaining school.

Speaking to The Argus, Mr Balls said he did not describe all 638 schools as "failing", because about a third were making good progress towards the benchmark.

Heidi Brown, headteacher at King's Manor Community College, Shoreham, said: "We are pretty confident we are going to get 30% this year, including English and maths. I don't think we will be closing. We will see a huge improvement for King's Manor Community College this year."

Paula Sargent, headteacher at Patcham High School said: "Not including English and maths, we are well over at 38%, but we are just under the 30% including those subjects at the moment. We should be reaching that and over way before 2011 so the threat of closure is not going to be a worry for us."