The summer’s GCSE results in London’s deprived East End are among the best improved top-grade rates in the whole country, according to provisional data today from the Department for Education.
Tower Hamlets secondaries are the fifth most-improved local authority schools, increasing the rate of pupils getting five A* to C grades by three-and-a-half per cent.
The pass rate topped 63.4pc, compared to just under 60 per in 2014.
The improvement bucked the national trend which had an overall fall of one per cent to 52.8.
Whitechapel’s Swanlea Secondary notched up 75pc pass rate in top grades that included maths and English—its best-ever improvement which was 15pc better than 2014.
Tower Hamlets Mayor John Biggs popped into the school in Brady Street to pay special thanks to the pupils who are now going on to take their A-levels next summer.
He arrived with the council’s cabinet member for education Rachael Saunders to meet head teacher Brenda Landers who got them there and Chair of Governors Fatima Shuaibu.
Other Tower Hamlets schools also did well in top-grade GCSE results.
Stepney’s Bishop Challoner Boys had the single biggest improvement with a 21.6 per cent pass rate, while Poplar’s Langdon Park’s passrate improved by 15.6pc.
“We need to recognise the achievements of these schools,” the Mayor said. “This improvement would not have been possible without the determination of teachers and school staff.”
The authority supported the schools by brokering partnerships between them to develop subject courses.
Schools also have well-established intervention programmes for GCSE students and, as these have developed, have become tailored to individual youngsters’ needs.
This has led to schools being able to target interventions to specific pupils to sort out any problems and get them up to scratch.
Some secondaries like Langdon Park have started ‘after school’ revision sessions in maths and English.
There has also been emphasis on tracking and monitoring, then using the information to help individual pupils.
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