How to build a school

King’s College London Mathematics School is precisely one year old. And on 13 August it woke up to AS-level results that make it one of the ten best state schools in the country. 97 per cent of students got an A in mathematics. 90 per cent of grades in maths and further maths were As. Students’ grades were, on average, two grades higher, across all their subjects, than would be expected from their GCSE results. As a governor, I bask in reflected glory.

Ours is a ‘free school’ sponsored by King’s, and it teaches talented, committed 16- to 18-year-olds. We select for potential, using our own test. But we also select by the education, and especially the quality of the A-level maths, that applicants could expect at their current school. Will coming to us ‘add value’? If not, someone else should have the place.

King’s Maths School, in other words, exists to nourish untapped mathematical potential. We believed that the country has a lot of it. And since 13 August, we have hard evidence that we were right.

Many students thrive on academic study. The surnames on our roll are London in microcosm: we’re not all Anglo–Saxon, nor all-Asian, and not even largely male. 43 per cent of our first cohort, all taking maths, further maths and physics, are girls, way above the national average. And there are no significant differences in the results achieved by different groups — not by gender, not by ethnicity, and not by whether students are eligible for Free School Meals, the school sector’s key poverty indicator.

These are seriously motivated students. Kim, for example, from a single-parent family, has a 90-minute commute each way, plus a job to help the family finances.