Pupils in inner-city primary where English is second language for most get higher grades than students in many private schools

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Jeff Farrell for MailOnline

Most of them speak English as their second language, but that didn’t stop students in a state primary from getting higher grades than many of their counterparts in private schools.

Grinling Gibbons primary school in Deptford in inner-city southeast London, where more than half of the pupils are so poor they get free school meals, ranked fourth place in a new school league table.

The survey - The Sunday Times Parent Power league table of 600 schools - found it was the highest position reached by a state primary since the annual ranking began 22 years ago.

Parents of the some 350 pupils from largely African heritage families credit the executive head teacher Cynthia Eubank for creating an inspirational atmosphere for children to learn.

Ms Eubank said hiring staff suitable for the style of teaching necessary for the standards of Grinling Gibbons was a challenge and recalled one who showed he wasn’t suitable.

She told The Sunday Times: ‘I had one chap come into a year 5 classroom and look through the work and tell me, “Your standards are too high and you want me to work too hard”.’

Apart from regular classes in traditional subjects, pupils are offered yoga, philosophy and swimming classes to help them learn.

The survey found every 11-year-old at the state primary scored a level 5 in standard assessment tests (Sats) – the level expected of a 13-year-old – for English reading and grammar last year.

The study found that in maths the figure was 98% and in English writing 86%.

But the top school in the table - Haberdashers’ Aske’s prep school in Slestree, Hertfordshire - 98% of year 6 pupils scored level 5 in maths and English grammar and 96% in reading and writing.

Parents pay annual fees of up to £16,662 to send their children to the private institution.

The top marks scored in English reading and grammar by pupils in Grinling Gibbons primary come after one school this year took an unusual move to teach English as a foreign language.

City of Leeds comprehensive, which has been transformed by the arrival of large numbers of migrants, was thought to be the first in the country to take the extraordinary step.

 

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