Islington's best ever GCSE results confirmed

Results in Islington have improved significantly faster than the national rate over the last five years for the percentage of pupils achieving  five A*- C grades including the key subjects of English and maths. 

The figures released today (Thursday 24 January) by the Department for Education, show that 53.6 per cent of Islington students achieved this measure in 2012.  This is a 16 percentage point increase over the last five years. 

2012 also saw an all-time high of 78.8 per cent of Islington students gaining five or more good GCSE passes last year, an increase from 75.1 per cent in 2011.

Results in some of Islington's community schools have risen particularly quickly, with substantial improvements at Holloway, Highbury Fields, Highbury Grove and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson schools.

Islington Council's executive member for children and families, Cllr Richard Watts, said:

"Many congratulations to the pupils and their teachers for these results.  Ofsted said recently Islington was among the top ten places in the whole country for quality of schools and the improvement in our GCSE results over the last few years shows what progress has been made.

"We're not complacent about the future and will continue to work hard to improve our schools further. We're helping schools to work together to boost standards by sharing expertise.  The improvement in results at the schools we have worked with has been fantastic."

"We want to create a fairer Islington and make sure our schools provide an equal chance for all young people to reach their potential."

Some Islington schools had particularly good news stories to tell.

Holloway has seen a huge increase in its results for five or more A*-C grades including English and maths, from 36 per cent in 2011, to 60 per cent in 2012.  Top grades were particularly prevalent in maths, with 22 per cent of students achieving an A* or A in this subject.  Headteacher at Holloway School, Bob Hamlyn said:

"These results put Holloway School above national averages for the key benchmarks. It proves what we always knew, and what Ofsted said about us - we are a rapidly improving school. 

"These results show that parents in our community can be very positive about sending their child to a good local school which will not only care for and nurture their child, but will also deliver rigourous academic results".

Highbury Fields has been on a similar journey of improvement, with 2012's results at 71 per cent, compared with 60 per cent in 2011.

At St Aloysius' College, an incredible 99.3 per cent of students achieved at least five A*-C grade GCSEs.  

As usual, there were some remarkable individual student results in 2012.   This includes Asmie Vanajaraj from Mount Carmel, who obtained 12 A*-A grade GCSES.    At St Aloysius secondary school, Sean McCarty achieved 14 A*-A grade GCSEs or equivalent. 

The data released today verifies the provisional GCSE results published last August.