Islington in top 10 for educating disadvantaged pupils

Islington primary schools are among the best in the country for helping disadvantaged pupils achieve their potential and land good SATs exam results, new data reveals.

Verified results from last summer’s exams, which are taken by all 11-year-old children in their final year of primary school, reveal that 79% of disadvantaged pupils in Islington achieved the benchmark Level 4 or better in reading, writing and maths – the ninth-best performance in England.

The data, released by the Department for Education, reveals that overall, 83% of pupils achieved Level 4 or better and Islington has no schools below the floor target – bettering the averages for both London (2%) and England (5%).
Islington is also mentioned in Ofsted’s recent Annual Education Report, which cites the borough’s secondary schools as an example of high performance despite challenging levels of deprivation.

Cllr Joe Caluori, executive member for children and families, said: “These new figures show that our schools are among the best in the country – but they have been particularly successful in helping disadvantaged pupils achieve their potential and get good results.

“This is testament to the excellent work done by our fantastic primary schools, and I want to send out my heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful teachers who made this happen – but also of course to the pupils who worked so hard, and the parents who encouraged them.

“As a borough with the third-highest rate of child poverty in the UK it is incredibly important to us that primary schools do their bit in tackling inequality of outcomes, and they do so with gusto. Congratulations to everyone involved.”