How our schools win... and lose

WHAT is the best way to measure a school’s performance? 

Islington schools beat neighbouring Camden hands down in the government’s new CVA scores, which measure a child’s improvement levels. But when it comes to “good” GCSEs, Islington is shown up by Camden. 

For parents, an easy indication is to look at which school has the highest figure for pupils with “good” GCSEs – the percentage of students who gain five or more grade A*-C scores including English and maths.

These are the passes most needed by pupils hoping to continue to A-levels and, ultimately, university. 

The more “good” GCSEs children have, the more choice they have when it comes to further or higher education.

But for the government and headteachers, it’s all about Contextual Value Added (CVA) scores – how much a pupil has improved between arriving at the school and taking GCSEs. Taking the figure 1000 as a base, the more this figure goes up by GCSE time, the more a student has improved above the basic standard. If the figure falls below the 1000 mark, a child has improved less well than expected. 

The measures take into account background, a school’s geography and deprivation levels, giving a more realistic interpretation of how well a child has done.

In Islington, the CVA scores of all nine secondary schools were above the 1000 mark, showing that pupils improved better than expected.

But is this enough? It’s all very well to know that pupils have improved but for a parent, concerned with grades that will scar or enhance a child’s personal record next year, it’s little comfort.

In only three of the borough’s nine secondary schools, more than half of pupils gained five “good” GCSEs last year, leaving six schools lagging below 50 per cent.

All but one Islington school, St Aloysius (68 per cent), scored lower than the top four schools in neighbouring Camden, La Sainte Union (75 per cent), Camden School for Girls (73 per cent), Acland Burghley (57 per cent) and Hampstead School (51 per cent). Three Islington schools follow close behind, Central Foundation (50 per cent), Mount Carmel (49 per cent) and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (48 per cent).

This leaves Highbury Grove (42 per cent) and Islington Arts and Media School (40 per cent) in the low 40s and three in the 30s – City of London Academy (38 per cent), Holloway School (37 per cent) and Highbury Fields (36 per cent).

But this order changes, in some cases dramatically, when looking at CVA scores. 

All but one of Islington’s schools have higher CVA scores than every school in Camden, ranging from 1043.6 to 1015.4 (Highbury Fields).

While St Aloysius remains top (1043.6), Highbury Grove climbs three places to second (1036.2). City of London Academy, at the bottom of the table, still scores a positive mark (1001.8) and comes in above three Camden schools.

Camden’s scores begin at 1014.8 (Camden School for Girls), with three falling below the base mark – Maria Fidelis (988.8), William Ellis (983.9) and South Camden (982.5).

But, while schools can rightly point to the CVA figures as a better reflection of their performance, parents concerned about a child’s future will find it hard to resist the attraction of the “good” GCSE scores.
ROISIN GADELRAB