What are the best local schools in Islington?

Islington schools have celebrated a significant improvement on last year's GCSE results, with 74 per cent of pupils gaining five or more passes at A*-C grades: this compares to a rate of 65.3 per cent last year and 49.3 per cent in 2007, showing a rapid improvement for Islington of 24.7 per cent in just three years. But as any parent knows, that figure says little about how individual schools in the borough are doing.

More concerning still, there's also the issue of Islington's place in the wider context of all London schools. When we look beyond the headlines on star pupils and improved performances across the board, the fact remains that Islington state schools have historically performed poorly, and were last year ranked second-to-bottom in the London league tables, under-performed only by Greenwich.

While data for all schools is still being processed, we can't speculate on how Islington will compare overall, but schools that have upped their game this year include Highbury Fields School, which improved enormously on it 2009 results, with 72% of students gaining at least five good GCSE grades (it had been cited in 2009 as one of Islington's worst, with only 36 per cent getting grades A-C). Its neighbour, Highbury Grove School has also received praise from Ofsted, with inspectors commending its improvement in behaviour, attendance and results.

Top of the league for many year, St. Aloysius Boys' RC college has not yet announced its 2010 results, but 89% of its pupils gained five or more A* to C grades last year, followed up by Central Foundation Boys' school. It is interesting to note that Islington's all male schools seem to out-perform all others, contradicting the national trend for girls to do better (girls, nationally get 25.5% of all A grades while boys get 19.6%).

How do you think Islington's results could be improved, and what do you think of the choice of local state schools?