Congratulations to all those free schools who got their GCSE results this morning. We don’t yet have the full picture, but early reports are good.
Top marks to Tauheedul Islam Boys’ High School in Blackburn, a free school that opened in 2012. Ninety-five per cent of its pupils achieved five A* to C grades in their GCSEs, including English and maths, a metric known as ‘5A*–CEM’. To put this in context, last year’s 5A*–CEM national average was 56.1 per cent.
Another school that has done well is Dixons Kings Academy in Bradford. It was one of the first 24 free schools to open in 2011 – it was originally called King Science Academy – and was taken over by the Dixons Academy chain after financial irregularities were brought to light by a whistleblower. Sixty-seven per cent of its pupils achieved 5A*–CEM.
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