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LONDON | DEEP-DIVE | SCHOOLS

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For many parents, the choice of school is intimately bound up with their choice of residential location. And for good reason.

“A persistent muddler. Vocabulary negligible, sentences mal-constructed. He reminds me of a camel.” A teacher’s comment on an English composition by Roald Dahl (aged 15).

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Follow the links below to drill down and see the geographic distribution of London's state-funded primary and secondary schools, together with their respective performance metrics. You can also find the corresponding information for London's independent (fee-paying) secondary schools.

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The performance of London's state-funded schools varies markedly from one borough to another. Moreover, even within the same borough one can find the full gamut of schools: from the best performing to the lowest performing. This is why the choice of residential location is typically one of the most important decisions facing the bulk of London's parents, most of whom cannot afford to send their children to private schools regardless of their political/ethical stance on the matter. Meanwhile, for the minority of families who do send their kids to private school, residential location still plays an important, albeit less critical, role in their choice of school (and vice-versa, of course).

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However, before you dive into this school-by-school detail, a quick word on the source of our school performance data, all of which comes from the UK Government's Department for Education. This data shows annual performance results for each school at various stages in their pupils' education. For the purposes of the District Finder we concentrate on two of these staging points, viz:

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  • the results of the Key Stage 2 ("KS2") exams that are taken by pupils during their last year of primary school; and;

  • the results of the 'A' level exams taken by pupils during their final year(s) of secondary school.

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In the Polymap and in the Gallery, you will see that, for each hexagon, we utilise an aggregate "schools quality" filter, with each hexagon classified according to a ten point scale (with hexagons in "Tier 1" being at the top end of the scale and those in "Tier 10" being at the bottom end). It is worth bearing in mind, however, that the this aggregate schools quality score is a weighted composite of the following:

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  • 42.5% of each hexagon's score is drawn from the KS2 performance of the state-funded primary schools closest to the postcodes encompassed by each hexagon;

  • 42.5% of each hexagon's score is drawn from the 'A' level performance of the state-funded primary schools closest to the postcodes encompassed by each hexagon; and

  • 15% of each hexagon's score derives from the proximity of the hexagon's postcodes to at least two "decently performing" fee-paying independent schools (where "decently performing" means that the school's average 'A' level results must be at grade B or above).

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The rationale for this weighting schema derives from the fact that 85% of all students who sit 'A' levels in London have been pupils at state-funded primary schools (and our belief that the quality of primary education is as important as the quality of secondary education).

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