Cllr Oliver Cooper

• YOUR Letters columns are always interesting and often enlightening, but occasionally fake news creeps in.

One 2018 letter in particular from Cllr Oliver Cooper, Camden’s Tory leader, sticks in the mind. Despite “fact checking” he keeps retweeting and reasserting his disparaging remarks about what he malignantly terms “the increasingly dire performance of school standards in Camden” (Too many Camden pupils missing out on Oxbridge, Tories claim, February 4).

Of course it depends on what “standards” you consider important. Cllr Cooper obviously thinks of comparing “unlike with unlike” by pointing out that University College School, Hampstead, a private fee-paying school (£20,328 a year) has more Oxbridge applicants each year than any Camden comprehensive school.

Furthermore he has trumpeted that Westminster has the best school results in inner London and Barnet the best in the country, leading him to the absurd conclusion that this is because both those boroughs are “Conservative-run”. That rather ignores the fact that these are two of the wealthiest neighbourhoods and councils in the entire country.

Fortunately the true facts about Camden schools are now analysed in the excellent first annual report of “Camden Learning”, the independent achievement and standards authority which gives an authoritative judgment. Some points to note:

1. Context is all-important. We have known for a century or more that “value-added modelling” is a crucial test of actual school performance. By that standard Camden schools are doing remarkably well. In contrast, given the selective intake, private tutoring support, and privileged family backgrounds of many pupils in wealthier boroughs it is little wonder that some of their schools in the leafy suburbs are doing well.

2. One very important fact is that some 28 per cent of Camden’s primary school pupils sadly go out of borough to secondary schools elsewhere. Some, like in my area in south Camden, are forced to go because there is no local secondary school for the “reservoir kids”.

Add on the 4 per cent of Camden primary pupils that go private at secondary level, and that means that we are haemorrhaging a third of our children. And so it is not perhaps surprising that neighbouring Barnet and Westminster do well at secondary level when they cream off the product of the undoubtedly successful Camden primary schools.

3. “Could do better” is the obvious mantra for all schools. But the persistent denigration of our Camden teachers, governors and families by Cllr Cooper should not go unchallenged. Particularly heartening is that the “Camden Learning” report applauds the quality of Early Years, long a hallmark of Camden’s education system to give a sure start to a child’s educational journey.

Because Camden schools take “all-comers”, rather than just selecting, as with fee-paying preparatory and private schools, it is a notable achievement.

Cllr Cooper’s Tory government only seems to add to the challenges faced by Camden families – for some the disaster of benefit cuts, the afflictions of the low-wage “gig” economy, the poverty leading to poor diet, the background of few if any books at home, perhaps little English spoken starting school, and parents trying their best but with poor educational attainment themselves.

Our schools provide a ladder up out of adversity for so many Camden children. And Cllr Cooper should not be so keen to traduce those schools and kick the ladder away.

CLLR JULIAN FULBROOK
Labour, Holborn & Covent Garden ward