London’s primary schools pupils did exceptionally well in the key stage 2 tests they took last summer. A nation-leading 82% of the capital’s 11 year-olds achieved level 4 or better in reading, writing and maths, up 3% from last year. Best of all, the detailed stats show that lots of schools helped children exceed the government’s “value added” requirement, meaning the progress they were expected to have made since the age of seven.
Top performers in this category include Cherry Orchard in Greenwich, John Perryn in Ealing, Whittingham Academy in Waltham Forest and Newton Farm in Harrow. Hurrah for those teachers, hurrah for those kids and hurrah for all the others who did well. But one successful school in particular caught my eye. It is the Sulivan school in south Fulham, which not only finished top of the Hammersmith and Fulham borough league table for results but had also helped its Year 6 pupils come on in exceptional leaps and bounds over the previous four years.
The reason Sulivan’s success is extra special is that until Labour removed the borough’s radical Conservatives from the Town Hall helm in May, Sulivan looked certain to be closed. The Tories argued that it was surplus to requirements and should be merged with another local primary, even though Boris Johnson had included it in his Gold Club of schools that had, under the leadership of new head Wendy Aldridge, “succeeded against the odds in improving pupils’ aspirations and achievements”.
The mayor’s fellow Tories in H&F protested that their decision was nothing at all to do with the search for a site of the nascent Fulham Boys secondary school (FBS), set up by with the council’s backing by a local Tory to propagate what look for all the world like Tory values. They did, though, happen to mention now and then that freeing up space for the borough’s latest free school would be, you know, a beneficial side effect of shutting Sulivan down. Despite his plaudit for Sulivan, the mayor too was excited by the FBS, describing the plan for it as “brilliant”.
I documented the whole saga here. It seemed at the time that Sulivan was doomed. Yet Labour’s shock win reprieved it, and who will quarrel with the new administration’s decision now? Meanwhile, the FBS has moved into temporary quarters, having been promised by Boris Johnson, in whose ideological image it might have been created, that a space would be located where they could set up permanently.
Whatever your views on the masculinist enterprise culture the FBS espouses, you had to feel for the parents and children affected by all the uncertainty. They will be relieved that last month the FBS website reported that an announcement on the school’s “permanent location in the borough is expected shortly”. I’m told it is hoped that “shortly” means mid-January. If the mayor decides to hog the credit for finding the FBS a proper home, perhaps he’ll also take the opportunity to say well done to Sulivan.
