Islington Education

Walthamstow activist, John Moss, wrote a though provoking article about Conservative Party education policies for Conservative Home today. John works locally in Clerkenwell and began with an interesting Islington point from Boris that I had missed in all the coverage of grammar schools:

Boris Johnson points out that 50% of parents in Islington buy extra tuition for their children.

My role as Chairman in Islington Conservatives isn’t to provide or comment on Conservative Party policy on a national issue, however personally I do agree with Boris’s point that we need to address our children’s education, especially in locations like Islington.

As one of the Islington Conservative Future Officers said to me on Sunday, schools are one of the most vital influences on everyone and good schools can benefit a child beyond any other factor.

I am glad that this Nationwide debate about schooling is showing the measures the Conservative Party can and will introduce when next in office, including more setting and streaming
of pupils.

UPDATE:

Actually the whole of Boris's Islington related comment in his grammar schools article was as follows:

They pay for tutors, like the former Labour education minister Margaret Hodge, and it is largely thanks to her diabolical leadership of Islington that, in some schools in the borough, the number receiving expensive out-of-school tuition has risen to 50 per cent, and no one complains about the consequences for the 50 per cent of children whose parents cannot afford the tutor.