Education: Island of learning in the tarmac jungle

Yardleys comprehensive school is in one of the most deprived parts of Birmingham. It has two sites half a mile apart in the middle of what Heather Jones, the head, calls a tarmac jungle. Traffic roars along the main road past the windswept corner where one building stands.

But inside the gates is a different world. There is a garden created in memory of a 12-year-old pupil who died last year and a pergola and trellis built by girls from the school.

Yardleys' "environment enhancement leaders", known as eels, are always on the lookout for ways to improve the environment and even spend time in local primary schools recruiting young eels. Their work is not just an enjoyable extra but a symbol of the school's belief that, despite its unpromising surroundings, its expectations must be as high as any in the land.

Nearly half its 900 pupils have free school meals, compared with about a fifth nationally, and 65 per cent come from ethnic minority groups. Yet in November it was named by the Government as one of the country's most improved schools - its GCSE results have improved every year for the last four years. The proportion of pupils gaining five or more GCSEs at grades A-C has risen by 17 percentage points to 33 per cent during that time.

Mrs Jones, who began her career at the school 10 years ago by painting over the graffiti on the lavatory walls, is committed to Birmingham council's policy of target-setting as part of a host of initiatives for raising standards. She describes the leadership of Professor Tim Brighouse, the chief education officer, as "inspirational". "The idea of improving on our previous best underpins everything that we do."

For year seven pupils that means one time-tabled lesson a week on learning techniques such as memory and speed reading which are taught in the city's University of the First Age, the summer holiday activity offering extra tuition to 11-year-olds throughout the city. Heads of departments set targets and different subjects are analysed to compare performance. Older pupils have their own targets which they help to set. Teachers "adopt" three or four borderline pupils to give them extra help with their work and older pupils help younger ones.

The success-maker programme has been used to improve literacy and numeracy through computers. There are revision courses and facilities for pupils to do homework every night after school. Mrs Jones hands out a tape of baroque music for pupils to play while they revise. She says she is prepared to try most things to improve attendance in an area where pupils are sometimes kept at home to act as interpreters for their parents.

There are raffles with prizes for those with 100 per cent attendance, attendance certificates and a competition to be "form of the week" for attendance. Mrs Jones herself drives everything forward. "Go for it. Make it happen, I tell them. They know I believe it."