15 January (Part 3) - Abandoning the poor to their fate
When I met up with @ErithLink yesterday we
agreed on a surprising number of things. One was that it would be silly to trust any
Cabinet Member except perhaps John Fuller who looks after Education.
Both of us were under the impression that he was running a decent enough show in a professional
manner and had noticed he never resorts to insults, political or otherwise. I have come to believe that
Bexley’s schools may not be perfect but standards are a damned sight better than
in Children’s Services and Public Realm. Maybe I have fallen for Bexley council propaganda.
The chart below is not easy to interpret because it shows the percentage of pupils NOT achieving the target
GCSE results and so the bars extending furthest right are the worst and not best as you might assume.
The bars are further divided into pupils in receipt of free school meals (FSM in light blue) and those who pay (dark blue).
For FSM pupils Bexley is worst in London although to be fair it is no worse than
England’s average. For those pupils who pay for meals only seven boroughs score worse than Bexley.
Maybe I should revise my opinion of education standards in Bexley.
The graphs, the explanation and the original data may be downloaded from London Poverty Profile. That’s another thing @ErithLink and I agreed upon. There is a sickening amount of poverty north of the Bexleyheath railway line and it’s hard to know what to do about it other than make donations to food banks.