ENGLAND’S Islamic schools are once again giving the best-added value to their pupils and, arguably, making the case for their inclusion in the state system. This year, six independent faith schools dominate the top 20 schools in helping to improve the prospects of their students.
The top state school, Selly Park Technology College for Girls, also has an overwhelming Pakistani/Asian intake.
The top fee-paying school is Islamiyah, in Blackburn, which opened five years ago. On average, the school has helped each pupil to improve by two grades more than would have been expected when they entered.
Zarina Seedat, the Zimbabwean head teacher, believes the results would be even higher and serve a wider community were the school to receive state funding.
“If we had more resources and finances we would do even better,” she says. “We could afford interactive whiteboards, more books for the library and more computers for the classrooms.”
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The 185-pupil school charges £800 a year. Constrained resources mean it is unable to teach children with special needs. The pupils follow the national curriculum and take at least eight GCSEs, but no GNVQs.
Islamiyah school is open to all girls who choose to abide by its ethos. It follows religious festivals, but pupils decide for themselves whether to observe.
Ms Zeedat, 42, believes the girls thrive because they are taught by an all-women Muslim staff in a familiar environment. “They are more at ease and know what’s expected of them,” she says.“If they went to an ordinary school, they could become a bit bewildered by the numbers and the behaviour of the others.”
Her ambition is to expand the school and offer A levels in the sixth form and develop childcare facilities for staff.
At Selly Park Technology college for Girls, Michelle Magrs, the head teacher, is clear that the improvement in her pupils’ results is down to individual attention. Most students at Selly Park go on to do A levels at local colleges, before heading off to university. However, Magrs says she has no desire to expand the school, in spite of government encouragement to do so.
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“We have no space to develop a sixth form. Also we’re good at working with girls, but for a mixed school we would need an entirely different set of strategies,” she says. “It’s a big enough challenge as it is.”
Teachers are on site every Saturday to help girls with their coursework, there are homework clubs and “super-learning” days twice a term, when pupils are released from the timetable to concentrate on areas they are struggling in.
Fifty-four per cent of the children receive free school meals. Two-thirds do a GNVQ in IT — the equivalent of four GCSEs — but English, maths, double science and technology GCSEs are also compulsory.
“We have a culture that won’t let the children not succeed,” she says. “We will be on to them to help and support them. Often, children just need some personal intervention to get their work into bite-sized chunks.”
The Department for Education and Skills introduced value-added school comparisons to measure the progress made by pupils between their primary school tests at 11 and exams at 16 and to allow parents to see the benefits of the good teaching at their secondary schools.
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The DfES calculations produce a result for each school based on the number 1,000.
Every six points above 1,000 mean that pupils at a school achieved on average a single GCSE grade better in one of their subjects than was expected, compared with schools with similar groups of pupils nationally.
For every six points below 1,000, children gained a grade less than expected.
The Times has rounded each school’s score to the nearest whole number. The DfES insists that differences of up to 29 points between schools with 50 or more students are not statistically significant. The figure falls to 21 points for those schools with 100 or more students.
Research shows that only 14 per cent of pupils who do not reach the expected standard in primary school tests achieve five good GCSEs.The tables below omit schools with ten or fewer pupils.