Children at a Fitzrovia primary school are among the country’s best young achievers according to government statistics published this week.
All Souls Church of England Primary School in Foley Street was ranked in the top 10 percent of schools in England based on pupils’ progress in reading, writing and maths.
At the school 87 percent of pupils met the expected standard in literacy and numeracy after sitting the key stage 2 test in the summer of 2016. The score is well above the City of Westminster average of 58 percent and the England average of 53 percent.
The school was ranked second from top place in Westminster in a league table of schools in each London borough produced by the London Evening Standard. There are over 20,000 primary schools in England and the Telegraph newspaper ranked All Souls in the top 1,000 because of the number of pupils not only attaining the government’s expected standard but also the higher standard.
All Souls is a multi-cultural school with 196 pupils from a diverse mix of income backgrounds: 67 percent of them do not use English as a first language (compared with 21 percent nationally) and 34 percent qualify for free school meals (25 percent nationally) according to National Statistics for the 2015 to 2016 academic year.
There are eight full-time and three part-time teachers, says the school.
Across London 11-year-olds out-performed their peers in English counties and cities in the test which had been made much harder. General secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Russell Hobby, told BBC News: “The pass mark for the test was set at a ridiculously high level.”
Alix Ascough, headteacher of All Souls, told Fitzrovia News that she was thrilled with the results. “It’s a testament to all the hard work the children and teachers have done. It goes to show that if you invest in teachers you get the results.”
The school, which has had to endure years of disturbance from nearby demolition and construction works, was also rated “outstanding” in a recent Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools (SIAMS) Report.
This article was corrected at 9.15am Monday 19 December 2016 after the school contacted us to say we had used the wrong statistics on the number of teachers.