Islington schools fail their pupils

salieri

Breathtaking, yes. But it would be even more interesting to know why the science 'teachers' didn't even put one candidate forward. Do they in fact have science teachers in Granitasia?

Trumpeter Lanfried

This would never have happened when Rhodes Boyson was Running Highgrove. As soon as he (and his able successor) had departed, Islington Council moved in for the kill. Academic excellence? Middle class values? Good examination results? "Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!"

Jonnie

I think this slightly misrepresents the case. What the stat shows is that Islington schools only offer the so-called "double award" science, where pupils study a core course in all three sciences and are awarded two GCSEs for it. (There's also a "single award" where the level of depth is lower.) As far as I ever knew, double award is considered the standard and nothing higher is expected by universities. Taking the three individual sciences as separate GCSEs just involves the same core course plus three short extension papers which aren't all that much more difficult than the rest of it. So all these pupils are, at least, taking sciences to a certain level - putting them on track to apply for all science courses, not as you suggest.

At least that's how it was when I took GCSEs five years ago...

newmania

We moved from Islington when we acquired a little newmanias largely because of the schools, well and the crime .Nearby Labour MP s are a fine example . Dianne Abbot sent her sons to private school because they suffered form the almost *unique* North London ‘impediment’ of being black ( as do my sons ). Emily , alarmingly-fat-considering-all-her-cycling , Thornberry , found some mediaeval by law whereby she sent her children to Grammar in Potters Bar and yet supposedly participated in Islington `s state education . Ruth Kelly …well; we know middleclass dyslexia struck as it so often does and Jeremy Corby I `m not sure …is he gay or is it just a silly beard ?

Islington has nothing to do with Granitas , now a tex-mex heart attack, it is 50 % social housing with 70% of them on benefits ( a far greater proportion of children ). The Andover estate is Islington . King Ken is imposing 13000 new social housing units on this already basket case Borough over ten years , a murder a week , pre prison instead of schools and about to get even worse. Last time I saw James Kempton the limp Liberal leader he was talking about mentoring to a few old ladies who are “Friends of Islington” Slight scale problem perhaps ? .
I do not know any ordinary person able to stay , not in the end and not if they have to use the schools,.

Now we live in Lewes…. Its nice here ]and its nice to someone point out what a horrifying mess that foul woman Enver Hodge left from which the Borough has never really recovered. The houses keep getting shoe horned in with the result that the waiting list goes up as those seeking accommodation move in. Now she’s in Barking dog whistling about how the darkies are creeping up the housing list…and after what she was responsible for in children’s care as well !!!

Incidentally Michael Gove was helpful with the leaseholders under concerted doctrinal attack from Ken`s Housing Mafia on service charges .

David Boothroyd

Practically every secondary school now teaches for the 'double award' GCSE in Science rather than the individual subjects. Applied science includes Physics, Biology and Chemistry.

Verity

Their agenda is so obvious and could so easily have been thwarted with the flick of a voter's wrist, but they didn't do it. They bent their necks, cowed, and went with their master's programme.

Next up, look for financial incentives for schools to incentivise muslims in the sciences.

Mark my words. That is next. Mark my words.

Beat the Britishness out of Britain.

THX1138

Most private schools now do the international GCSE for the science's so they won't show up your stats either and the reason whyEton appears artificially lower in the GCSE league tables.

Anyway I thought a scientifically illiterate population suits the Speccies agenda
otherwise people would stop believing the unscientific drivel posted on this site about global warming & the MMR jab.

Fergus Pickering

I was told some years ago by the boy next door that double award science was rubbish and taught you sweet f a . He ought to know. He did physics and went toOxford and now earns unbelievable sums of money in Germany. Me, I wouldn't know. I stopped science nearly fifty years ago at the age of fourteen because it was so boring and incomprehensible.

Adam

I did double award science GCSE in 1993, under a Conservative government - as did all of my classmates. Not one of us, at a perfectly good state school, was entered for a GCSE in physics, biology or chemistry - and yet we all studied physics, biology and chemistry to GCSE standard. This quote from Gove is a classic example of how a small truth can tell a big lie. Frankly, he should be ashamed of himself - he's a clever enough man to know what he's doing.

Nathan James

I was talking about this with my brother yesterday, he took his GCSE dual award science in 1996 and got A*, and he said it was the easiest GCSE by a mile for anyone who is half decent at science to get an A* in, far easier than English or Maths.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Double award science is similar to the old GCE General Science paper. That was the paper reserved for bogus oiks such as myself who weren't up to real science.

HJ

I am paying for an independent school for my daughter. One of the key reasons is that they offered separate physics, chemistry and biology GCSEs instead of double 'science'.

No local state school offered the separate GCSE option. Truly shocking.

Next they'll amalgamate English, French, history, RS etc, and call it "combined arts"

ACT

So we're all agreed then? The Gover's been caught ginger-handed telling a complete pork pie? Right, let's move on to the rather bigger problem. What the **** is the great direct democrat doing presuming to tell anyone, school, pupil or parent who should be entered for what GCSEs? If people don't want to do eg single award biology, then that, surely, is up to them?

dearieme

The feeble "double award" was all that was permitted in the Cambridge state schools until a parents' revolt put a stop to it. At the time, the excellent local private girls' school insisted that every pupil did all three individual science GCSEs. Plus two language GCSEs. Plus maths. Plus......

Tiberius

The son of one of my colleagues took his grade 1 piano exam yesterday, and I remarked that this was clearly one area that could not be dumbed down - you can either play the work or you can't. Yes, said my colleague, but the thin end of the wedge is visible - the annotation is now in English, not Italian. Perhaps Eric Morecambe's version of the Grieg Piano Concerto is only another socialist government term away.

Simon Chapman

This is not new. I, and all those at my school, did what was then called "combined science", but which was effectively joint science, at O-level in 1981. Many of my more scientific-minded contemporaries went on to read all sorts of sciences & mathematics at Oxford and Cambridge. My school was (is) a well-known and over-subscribed independent school.

Fergus Pickering

Come and live in East Kent. We have GRAMMAR SCHOOLS and you can do proper science at them.

Peter O'Sullivan

What was Michael Grove's source for the Islington statistic?