At key stages two and four, black pupils, particularly black Caribbean pupils, were found to be performing less well than other ethnic groups across the borough.
However, speaking at a children and education overview and scrutiny sub-committee last Tuesday (March 18), Neil Marlow, Barnet Council’s chief executive and director of education and learning, said that compared to black pupils nationally, Barnet’s were “achieving higher”.
Mr Marlow said this data point was a “priority” for the borough but added he was pleased to see there had been “greater” improvements year-on-year in this group, compared to other ethnic groups locally.
A report on educational standards for 2023/24 showed strengths in the borough’s education system as well as areas that needed improvement.
Ofsted has ranked 96% of schools in Barnet as either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ and attendance levels are “comparatively strong” at 94.2%, just above the London and national averages of 93.9% and 93.07% respectively.
At both primary and secondary level, Barnet has a lower exclusion rate compared to the Lonodon and national averages.
But Mr Marlow said special schools and pupil referral units had concerns about attendance. Although it did improve in 2024 it was not as high as primary and secondary attendance levels.
Committee member Cllr Sue Baker asked about achievements of pupils by ethnicity and whether the council could produce data on “gender and achievement”.
She said: “That can sometimes cut through class in terms of black females often doing a lot better than black males and white males lower than say Asian males.”
Mr Marlow said she was “exactly right” and the council would send a supplementary report.
He said: “We used to report on gender, but it didn’t actually used to go into the detail of crossing gender with ethnicity, and also differences in outcomes between the genders of disadvantaged pupils, I think that’s a really good point.”
Church representative Raisel Freedman pointed out the report showed locally and nationally there were staff recruitment and retention issues and asked if Mr Marlow could share information on progress.
In response he said retention “was good” but the difficulty lay with recruitment.
Mr Marlow said: “A barrier to coming and working in Barnet is financial because Barnet is an outer London borough and outer London teachers get less money than inner London teachers.”
Neighbouring boroughs such as Brent, Islington, and Camden were classed as inner London and so attracted more staff, according to Marlow, adding the difference could be “£3,000 or £4,000 more” in salary.
In terms of strategy, he said the council had met with students at universities to encourage them to work in the borough, but the process had been “a struggle”.
