Slough school pupils continue to excel above UK average

Councillors heard at a virtual education and children’s service scrutiny meeting on July 16 (Thursday) all key stages (KS)– apart from KS5 – reached above the national average in maths, reading, writing, and grammar last year.

Maths, writing and grammar have made major progress in the last three years whereas reading, although still above the threshold, has had a slight upward trajectory due to schools putting more ‘focus’ on that particular subject, according to the council’s school service lead.

Students in KS4 achieving grade five or above in both maths and English was up to 57.1 in 2019 – which, in contrast to the national average of 43, is a 14-point leap.

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Ninety-two per cent of schools inspected and rated by Ofsted last year across the borough were given a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ rating – but Beechwood Secondary was the only school to be rated ‘requires improvement’.

Councillors were told there was an upward trend of children who are disadvantaged achieving good results with the achievement gap between not disadvantaged being small – but it was reported white British children, more specifically white British disadvantaged children – were still below the national average for three years in a row.

In 2019, it was reported 15 per cent out of 2,360 pupils were white British where those classed as white British disadvantaged made up six per cent of the whole cohort.

Johnny Kyriacou, service lead for schools, said: “One of the reasons why the statistics are inflated is because when you have small cohort, if a few don’t achieve what they’re suppose to get then that increases the percentage.

“Because the percentage is small, it can inflate the figures.”

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With KS1 – 4 staying above the average, the report states A-level students have dipped below the national average for the last three years with 2019 being the biggest drop of pupils achieving AAB grades or higher for both genders.

Males achieving the average point score to enter A-levels was 29.44 against the national average of 32.29 while females average was 30.18 against the national 33.36.

Mr Kyriacou told councillors students who achieved high grades in GCSE were not hitting their targets when they moved to A-levels – but funds from the local school improvement pot as well as collaborating with multiple schools across the borough to set up projects and initiatives will be in place next year to increase the statistics.