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The new two-tier system is not to blame for the Island's poor education results, according to the Isle of Wight Council.
The Island was the second worst performing local authority in the country for GCSE results this year, according to government figures released yesterday.
It was also the worst - ranked 150 out of 150 local authorities - for 11 year olds making progress in English and maths this year.
In response, Isle of Wight Council leader Cllr David Pugh and Cllr Dawn Cousins, cabinet member for children's services and education, released this statement:
"As we said in August when the provisional results were announced, the poor performance at some secondary schools offset the extremely good results at others.
"There are clearly school-by-school factors which led to these differentials, rather than an Island-wide impact as a result of the structural change.
"Christ the King, Ryde Academy and Cowes Enterprise College thrived during the transition period, and clearly there are lessons to be learned from how they approached the period of change and drove up standards at the same time.
"It is unacceptable the other three failed to do so, which resulted in a disappointing average for the Island in overall terms.
"Steps have already been put in place to understand what has gone wrong and agree what support is required to help those schools with poor results meet the standards of those who are returning excellent results.
"The governors of these schools must now take steps, which demonstrate leadership changes.
"Where appropriate – we and the IW Council's Scrutiny Panel will shortly be requiring them to set out their action plan for improvement.
"The top performing school in terms of GCSEs is Christ the King College, which is the only Island state school to have had pupils in the same learning environment for the full secondary range (11 to 16 year olds).
"This shows that the continuity offered by the new two-tier system is blueprint from which all schools can succeed.
"The task now is to help ensure all schools similarly flourish in this new system."
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