Islington secondary schools among best in country for pupil progress to GCSE
Islington’s secondary school pupils make better progress than pupils almost anywhere else in England, new figures reveal.
Islington has been ranked 18th out of 151 local authorities for the academic progress made by pupils between the end of primary school and their GCSE results across eight key subjects.
Cllr Richard Watts, leader of Islington Council, said: “We now have some of the best schools in the country that are helping young people in Islington progress faster than many other areas.
“There has been a radical transformation in the performance of our local schools. Islington now ranks in the top 20 in the country for boosting pupils’ attainment, whereas in 2008 the borough ranked in the bottom 20 local authorities for its GCSE results.
“These results are a ringing endorsement for the quality and high standards in our schools, and are a testament to the hard work of all teaching and support staff, as well as the pupils themselves.”
The Progress 8 score for Islington pupils showed their GCSE results were almost one-fifth of a grade better than their peers nationally in 2016.
The Attainment 8 score also improved by 0.9 on last year, rising to 50.6 – remaining above the England average score of 48.5.
The new DfE figures also reveal Islington pupils’ results are far ahead of the national averages in several key benchmarks. Some 64.2% of pupils gained a grade C or better in GCSE maths and English language or English literature, compared with 59.3% in England – a new measure introduced this year.
Pupils also outperformed the national average against the outgoing benchmark of five or more GCSEs at grade C or above including English and maths. In 2016 some 58.7% of Islington pupils achieved this, up by 0.8%, while the national rate fell by 0.3% to 53.5%. Some 27.1% of pupils also achieved the English Baccalaureate, an impressive 4.0% above the national average.
These figures build on the progress in primary schools too. Last month other DfE figures revealed the performance of disadvantaged children in Islington primary schools last year was the 11th-best in England for reading, writing and maths combined.
Notes to editors
Notes to editor
The official figures come from the Department for Education, which has published its final Key Stage 4 results for the 2015/16 academic year.
In 2016 the government introduced two new ways of measuring school achievement – Progress 8 and Attainment 8:
Progress 8
Progress 8 is a measure of the average academic progress pupils make, across eight key qualifications, between the end of primary school and finishing their GCSEs, compared to the national average progress of pupils who ended primary school at a similar academic level.
A score of +0.5 means that, on average, every assessment included in a pupil’s Attainment 8 score was half a grade higher than the national average of pupils who ended primary school with similar grades.
Attainment 8
The Attainment 8 score is published for each school and is the average score its pupils attained. Each pupil’s Attainment 8 score is calculated using eight grades. The formula uses the grades a pupil gets for English and maths, and their three best grades achieved across science, languages, history and geography. The final three are the best remaining grades they achieved in all DfE-approved qualifications. If a school gets an overall Attainment 8 score of 5 it means that the average grade for every entry contributing to the score was a C at GCSE.
The Progress 8 score for Islington pupils was +0.19, meaning that on average each pupil had achieved results almost one-fifth of a grade higher than their peers who started secondary school in England with the same level of ability. This is better than the London average for state maintained schools of +0.16 and national average of -0.03. The result puts Islington at 18th out of 151 local authorities in England.
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