The progress made by Leicester's schools in their GCSE results over the past few years is a real success story. From a situation in which some of the city's secondaries were struggling a few years ago, there has been steady and sustained improvement.

Today, the city has reached a point where the latest results show all of its existing schools have exceeded the Government's "floor target" of at least 35 per cent of pupils passing five GCSEs with A* to C grades, including English and maths.

One of the biggest successes has been a spectacular improvement in the results for New College and our congratulations go to the teachers and pupils involved in this great achievement.

This improvement in school results has come against a background of the shifting goalposts of Government targets.

The original "floor target" figure for the proportion of pupils gaining good GCSEs was at least 30 per cent in any subjects.

Then schools were told they had to include English and maths. And now the figure has been raised to 35 per cent.

We think it was right that the Government raised the bar in this way.

It must be correct that we set our sights high and that we give as many children as possible the best start in life.

It is to the great credit of the city's schools that they have risen to this challenge so magnificently.

We know that a great deal of work has gone into this by both staff and pupils.

The challenge now is to sustain these improvements and build on them further.

In the meantime, we would like to extend our congratulations to the schools and to the pupils on their outstanding success.