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Girls prove they’re tops
CAMDEN saw record results at GCSE and outstanding success for one single-sex secondary in 2006 – though less than half the borough’s students got five good GCSEs including English and Maths, latest figures show.
Government league tables released last Wednesday show Camden School for Girls, in Camden Town, was the borough’s best-performing secondary school under new government ratings which force schools to include English and Maths for the first time.
Sixty eight per cent of its students gained five or more GCSEs at A*-C with English and Maths.
But the school also scored highly on a new rating – contextual value added (CVA) – which is intended to show how good the school is when factors like deprivation, disability, and first language are taken into account.
Despite the fact that the CVA gives extra points for teaching boys, Camden School for Girls was in the top quarter of schools nationally under this system.
Overall, Camden’s students achieved 45.7 per cent A*-C at GCSE with English and Maths, almost exactly the national average.
They were behind Barnet, Brent, Kensington and Chelsea, Harrow and Ealing but outperformed the majority of London boroughs.
Four schools celebrated their best ever results.
South Camden Community, Haverstock, Maria Fidelis and William Ellis schools all saw results climb sharply, with Maria Fidelis in particular seeing a 17 per cent improvement in A-C results overall.
South Camden Community School and Haverstock remain significantly behind the national average, however, with 30 and 35 per cent of students respectively getting five or more GCSE A*-C with English and Maths. Cllr Andrew Mennear, Camden’s schools boss, greeted the figures as “hugely encouraging” but acknowledged that more work had to be done on ‘key areas’ like South Camden and Haverstock.
He said: “I recognise that parents aren’t satisfied if they see that schools in other boroughs get higher results. They want to look at the time when their children will be entering the job market and competing not just with other Londoners but internationally.
“The results this year at South Camden are outstanding and the improvements at Haverstock are considerable, and now parents are fighting to get their children in there, which was not the case ten years ago.
“But (performance at five GCSE plus English and Maths) is obviously a key area- yes, they are priority areas.”
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