Education correspondent GENE BRODIE gives a Grade 3 to the public relations firms working for some of the borough’s secondary schools, whose news releases failed to include the hard facts on GCSE results day
Numbers game: Croydon College and Coulsdon Sixth Form College had more than 2,000 sitting GCSEs. But there’s no numbers for those getting top grades
GCSE results day this year came with a blizzard of press releases, many of which were distributed by public relations firms on behalf of academies, all making a raft of claims of success and achievement.
Yet many of them failed to provide what might be regarded as a realistic overview, or comparable statistics, of a school’s results. It’s almost as if they have something to hide.
“They tend to be unhelpful because they are essentially marketing, so they are selective,” according to a veteran secondary school teacher, who preferred that we didn’t name them.
“It’s what they don’t say that is interesting,” they said.
There was a similar pattern a week earlier, with A Level results. One organisation sent out a release claiming their “best ever” results, yet failed to provide a single stat or figure to support the claim.
Unbridled joy: at Trinity School, the pupils achieved the second-best set of grades ever
Nationally, with a group of children in Year 11 whose secondary school career has been conducted post-covid, is one of generally improved GCSE results.
Stronger performances in maths helped 16-year-old pupils taking GCSEs reach a record level for higher grades in England outside the pandemic years, when exams were replaced by teacher assessments.
The overall results for 16-year-olds nudged slightly higher compared with last year, with the proportion receiving grades 7, 8 and 9 – equivalent to grades A and A* – rising by 0.1 of a percentage point to 23.1%.
The proportion of nearly 700,000 16-year-olds in England who got a grade 4 or better – equivalent to a C or higher – also rose to 70.7%, compared with 70.5% in 2025.
Nationally, some of the strongest performances appeared to come in maths, a compulsory subject, where 22.3% received 7s or better, including 24% of boys and 20.5% of girls. In English, the other compulsory subject, results bounced back after dipping last year, with 66.1% of boys getting 4s and above while girls improved to 76.8%.
The results in these two core subjects are significant, because without at least a Grade 4 in English and maths (what used to be a C grade), pupils face mandatory re-sits before they can progress in their school careers or apprenticeships, potentially joining the “conveyor belt of failure”, as described this week by education secretary Lucy Powell, leading to a grim future as a NEET – not in education, employment or training.
Around 200,000 young people nationally do not achieve a 4 or above in both their English and maths exams – close to one-third of all pupils taking GCSEs. Figures published this week show only 17% of pupils resitting maths increased their grade last summer, and 21% of those resitting English. That means that the majority faced further rounds of re-sits, up to the age of 19, and prompting Powell’s “conveyor belt” remark.
Reviewing re-sits: education secretary Lucy Powell
The re-sits are “one of the most pernicious examples of the education system setting kids up for a cycle of failure: the number constantly resitting English and maths”, Powell said in an interview with The Times, as she announced proposals that would see pupils who receive a Grade 2 or below to take a new stepping-stone qualifications which will enable them to demonstrate numeracy and literacy to employers and colleges.
Thus the statements of untrammelled successes from Croydon’s schools and academies issued yesterday need to be taken in some kind of broader context, at least until the individual schools’ results are made available in detail by the DfE.
Oasis Academy Shirley Park, for example, produced a press release which highlighted half a dozen high-achieving pupils. They were unable, however, to provide figures for the year group’s results overall.
“It was a morning of celebration, smiles, and new beginnings,” according to the release issued on behalf of one of a state school within one the country’s largest, and wealthiest, academy chains. Oasis uses public money to run a communications department that circulates this sort of drivel.
Shirley Park’s pupils “achieved excellent grades”, we are told, without any actual numbers to support the claim. It is the sort of detail-lite press release which, if submitted as an essay at GCSE, might struggle to achieve Grade 2.
“These results are a testament to [the pupils’] hard work and the dedication of our amazing staff,” Andy Booth, Shirley Park’s principal, said in the mandatory congratulatory quote included with the releaase. His pupils, Booth said, “have come through with determination and ambition – we can’t wait to see what they do next”. He didn’t mention for how many pupils what they do next might be re-sits of maths or English.
At Meridian High School in New Addington, part of the GLF academy chain, they said that “for the second consecutive year, Meridian High School has maintained its GCSE and [Vocational and Technical Qualifications] outcomes”. And then omitted to say what those outcomes actually were.
Their pupils “have achieved success across a wide range of qualifications”, we are told.
The press release from a PR then highlighted a handful of success stories, without providing a broader set of results for the school as a whole. One pupil, apparently, “achieved multiple Grade 9s and 8s across her subjects”. When asked, the PR was unable to elaborate on what “multiple” might mean in this context.
Croydon Council regurgitated some of this vacuous verbiage, while stating, “The majority of the borough’s secondary schools are reporting an improvement on last year’s results, with Croydon closing the gap with national results.” But again, they failed to provide any numbers to justify the claims.
“At Meridian High School, we believe in removing barriers to success,” according to Amy Anderson, the headteacher.
Anderson did, at least, address the compulsory subject issue. “We are particularly pleased to see our disadvantaged students achieving mathematics outcomes above the national average for the second year in a row.” Though Meridian declined to provide the actual numbers or percentage of their pupils who got Grade 4, or better, at maths or English.
At Croydon College and Coulsdon Sixth Form College they had more than 2,000 pupils sitting GCSE and equivalent exams this summer, and they delivered “outstanding” success, with an overall pass rate – that is, Grade 4 or better – of 95%, well above the national average of 70%.
Impressive: Croydon College says its pupils had a 95% pass rate in GCSEs this year
Around 745 young people at Coulsdon Sixth Form and 1,369 who attended Croydon College collected results yesterday, with the college group’s press statement claiming “some subjects [achieved] an impressive 100% pass rate”. Although it might have been more impressive had Croydon College bothered to say what those subjects are, and how many pupils sat those exams.
The College press release states that pupils “excelled across English and maths, with many surpassing the grades required”. Some, we were told, achieved Grades 7, 8 and 9 – though again, the actual number was absent from the publicity circular.
Caireen Mitchell, the principal of Croydon College and Coulsdon Sixth Form, described the GCSE results as “exceptional”. She said: “Achieving a 95% overall pass rate is a remarkable accomplishment and reflects the dedication, resilience and ambition” of the pupils.
“They have worked incredibly hard, remained focused on their goals and should be immensely proud of what they have achieved,” Mitchell said, though without, beyond the overall 95% figure, actually sharing the numbers to show what had been achieved.
High achievers: Croydon High School’s girls were delighted with their rsults yesterday
The often lengthy releases sent from the academic hothouses that are Croydon’s large fee-paying schools were notably less shy in coming forward with their pupils’ results.
Almost 50% of all grades awarded to girls at Croydon High School were Grades 8 and 9 (A*/A** equivalent); 70% were Grades 7–9 (A/A*/A** equivalent).
Croydon High even provided figures for key subject areas, with almost three-quarters of grades across biology, chemistry, maths and physics awarded at grades 7-9.
“For 70% of all grades awarded to be Grades 7–9 is an outstanding achievement, and I am incredibly proud of every pupil who has worked so hard to realise their individual potential,” said Annabel Davies, the school’s headteacher.
Over at Trinity School in Shirley, they described an “outstanding set of GCSE results”, with 44% of all grades awarded at the top grade 9. Trinity say that this is the second-best performance in the school’s history, outside the covid-affected years.
Trinity’s figures showed that from 138 boys, 71% of all grades were awarded at 9–8 and 86% at grades 9–7. According to Trinity nine subject departments recorded more than 50% of their results at Grade 9. These included maths, further maths, physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography, design technology and photography.
There were 44 boys – almost one-third of the year group – who achieved seven or more Grade 9s. Three boys achieved the full-house of 11 Grade 9s.
Stephanie Baulf, the head of the Fifth Year, said: “I am so proud of this year group. They have all worked hard over the last two years and deserve this fantastic set of results.”
Trinity was also at pains to emphasise their boys’ extra-curricular successes, including Ed Morris, who was doing his GCSEs while captaining England hockey’s U16s, and Sebastian Bonsu-Amako, who with his exams passed, is now heading to the Crystal Palace academy.
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Congratulations to them all!
Relax – it’s necessary to set kids up for life in a brutally capitalist future, where only unsustainable improvement is acceptable.
There are “Lies, damn lies and statistics” as someone once said, so of course schools will spin any exam results to be positive about them.
Students could escape from the conveyor belt of failure by becoming politicians, who seem to have very low entry standards ?!
Only results matter. The rest is BS. So the obvious interpretation is that that college is going down. Wait until those failures try working, and see how their employer deals with them. Then they’ll get hit with cold, hard reality.
An absurd attitude. I came top of my year [1967] at a public school with the very unusual then [1967] 9 ‘O’ levels, but my career since then was a long and varied decline in conventional terms until the last 15 years of my working life when I managed to rise one level above basic wage labourer, despite loving my work, even dignified as a vocation, and the voluntary commitments deriving from it. There is no automatic link between academic results and future success, however measured, and still less with happiness in work and life. And regarding cold hard reality, so many well qualified persons I’ve encountered, having travelled the fast track academic/professional route with no experience of the work itself have absolutely no idea of how the job is done and the practical realities of those who actually do the work, and serve only to disrupt and disorganise with uninformed theoretical dictums. Breaking the link between the ground floor of the job and management by imposing a qualification bar has been disastrous for industry and commerce, as well as switching funding from further and adult education to pre-18 schooling and degrees. The current revival of apprenticeships to degree level may do something to redress that. We had a choice for our children between a school famous for its academic achievements [but stories of students damaged by burn-out] and one famous for its cultural environment, pastoral care and equitable admissions. We chose the latter.