IMPRESSIVE pupils' progress and outstanding GCSE results at local schools have led to a flurry of letters of praise from a Government minister.
David Laws, schools minister at the Department of Education, wrote to secondary schools in Harrow and Brent to congratulate them on their "high standards of educational achievement" regarding the recently released summer 2012 Key Stage 4 results for exams sat when children are 15 or 16.
JFS in The Mall, Kenton; Nower Hill High School in George V Avenue, Pinner, and the girls-only The Sacred Heart Language College in High Street, Harrow Weald, were among the top 100 schools in England for the percentage of pupils who gained at least five GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and Maths.
Those three, along with Whitmore High School in Porlock Avenue, West Harrow, and Bentley Wood High School for Girls in Bridges Road, Stanmore, were further praised for the amount of progress pupils have made when their actual GCSE grades are compared to what their assessment at the end of Year 6, when they leave primary school, would suggest.
This is known as Value Added and takes into account each teenager's eight best GCSE results. The five schools all appear in the top 100 for Value Added scores in England.
Mr Laws sent out a third letter congratulating schools on the progress disadvantaged pupils - defined as those under the care of a local authority or receiving free school meals - made between their projected English and maths GCSE grades at the end of Key Stage 2, and their actual results.
He told them: "Your school is exceptionally effective in educating pupils on free school meals, and I commend you for everything that you are doing in this area."
These letters went to Rooks Heath College in Eastcote Lane, South Harrow; Canons High School in Shaldon Road, Edgware; Alperton Community in Stanley Avenue, Alperton; Wembley High Technology College in East Lane, North Wembley; Claremont High School in Claremonet Avenue, Kenton, and Whitmore High School.
