THE educational performance of Dudley children in care has slumped dramatically in just 12 months, latest figures reveal.

Dudley Council's new School Standards Report for primary and secondary schools shows outcomes for looked after children have fallen by ten points from 38 in 2014 to 28 in 2015.

The gap between the achievements of looked after children and other school pupils has also "widened considerably" from 19.2 points in 2014 to 32.6 in 2015, the report shows.

Councillor Paul Brothwood, leader of Dudley's UKIP group, said: "To see the performance of looked after children fall dramatically over 12 months highlights a failure in the system.

“These are the borough's most vulnerable children and the council has a duty to protect and develop them."

Councillor Peter Miller said: "The results are appalling and the figures are getting worse each year. Something has got to be done."

The report, which was presented to Dudley's cabinet on Wednesday (February 10), also states the borough is behind the national average despite improvements in the proportion of Dudley children achieving a good level of development at early years.

In Key Stage One, standards are up but in 2015 national levels improved at a higher rate leaving Dudley in line or slightly below national levels except at level three.

Girls also continue to outshine boys - in maths for the first time; and the gap continues to widen for reading and writing. There's also still a gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and others (particularly boys).

In Key Stage Two - attainment in 2015 was similar to that nationally and exceeded the regional average but girls outperform boys in all areas apart from maths.

And in Key Stage Four - the gap has widened for two years between Dudley schools and their national and statistical neighbours (local authorities with a similar profile) - and the borough's results have fallen quicker, with the report noting "progress in maths from the end of the primary phase to the end of the secondary phase is particularly poor".

Councillor David Vickers said: "These figures are disappointing. We need to get our children up to speed nationally. We're quite good compared with our neighbours but it's nationally that we're dropping behind and we need to boost that."

Councillor Ian Cooper, Dudley's cabinet member for children's services, said: "There's much to do but there's also much to be encouraged about.

"We are improving as an authority on achievement and attainment but so is everybody else; we need to keep on with the improvements nationally - that's one of our challenges."

He said there was "no excuse" for the attainment gap between girls and boys, and added: "To move forward all young people need to achieve their best."

Cllr Cooper said the authority also aims to ensure "good and outstanding schools are spread even more profusely across the borough so everybody has access to good schools" as in Dudley the proportion of pupils attending good or better primary and secondary schools is 77.6 per cent - compared to the national average of 81.4. While the number of students attending outstanding secondary schools is 19.5 per cent compared to 25.3 per cent nationally.

Cllr Cooper added: "Our schools are very good at getting to good but good isn't good enough - we need to move from good to outstanding and set the highest possible aspirations for our children and young people."

Ofsted has just finished a four-week inspection of the council's children's services department and a new report is expected within six to eight weeks.

Cllr Brothwood said: "Unfortunately failings identified by Ofsted in the last report went unaddressed for three years. I hope this is changing. We don't want another lot of results that we are failing."