Hackney schools celebrate exam success

Hackney is today named as London's most improved borough in this year's GCSE results.

The borough,which has habitually propped up the capital's secondary school league tables, saw grades get so much better that it was the fifth most improved in the country.

Ministers today hailed the results as a vindication of their intervention in the borough. Last year they took responsibility for schools away from the local council and gave it to a unique not-for-profit Learning Trust.

The proportion of Hackney pupils achieving at least five good GCSE grades rose by 5.7 per cent to 36.8 per cent. That was still well below a national average of 51 per cent, and the London average of 49.3 per cent (which was up only 0.8 per cent this year).

But the improvement was at some of the toughest schools in the country.

Ministers intervened in Hackney after Ofsted inspectors called for action to reverse years of decline.

The Hackney Learning Trust, chaired by former national chief schools inspector Mike Tomlinson, is the first of its kind. It has a 10-year contract to run schools and trust board members include councillors, parent governors, headteachers and business leaders.

The chief executive is Hackney's former chief education officer, Alan Woods.

This year's exam success strengthens the case for the model to be extended to other poorly performing boroughs.

Mr Tomlinson pointed to strategies such as deploying experienced heads to support weak schools. "Schools are now working together and benefiting from the expertise and good practice in all of them," he said.

Education Minister Ivan Lewis was in Hackney today visiting Clapton Girls' Technology College, where half of pupils gained five good GCSEs, compared with 34 per cent last year.

Mr Lewis said the school was "an excellent example of a specialist school making a real difference in a tough inner city".

He added: "We have seen impressive strides in many schools that face challenging circumstances. They are narrowing the gap."

Three other London boroughs were among the 10 most improved in the country. Barking and Dagenham saw a rise of 5.5 per cent in the percentage of pupils getting at least five good GCSEs, Kingston 5.4 per cent, and Richmond 5.2 per cent. The most improved borough in the country was Portsmouth.