IT had become the educational elephant in the room: why are some primary schools in Tilbury doing well and one in particular, not?
Last month, St Mary’s in Calcutta Road, Tilbury was lauded for achieving perfect 100% scores in its SATS. Tilbury Manor was also praised at Wednesday night’s meeting of Thurrock Council’s Labour cabinet with a sound SATS score and a progressive feel as plans to amalgamate the infants and juniors schools move forward at pace.
But portfolio holder for children’s services, cllr Diana Hale pointed out that there does seem to be an anomaly.
She said: “How can it be that one school gets 100% in its SATS while across the road, another does poorly.”
YourThurrock understands that cllr Hale is referring to Lansdowne primary which was the worst performing school in the borough. 38 per cent of pupils managed to get at least level four in English and maths.
That placed the school the school in the bottom 284 schools out of the 10,129 in the country that took part in SATs.
Former council officer, Richard Epps was sent in to take charge of the school but it looks as if the pressure is on.
Cllr Hale told cabinet that she was determined to improve matters.
She said: “Key Stage 2 is the are where we must improve. Our secondary schools results are praised all over the country but we are doing our borough a dis-service if the standards in primary schools do not improve”.
