Islington’s children services were rated “excellent” in a report by Ofsted, one of only 28 councils in the country to be ranked so highly.

The borough’s special schools were also singled out for special mention in the annual report from the watchdog.

Children’s services cover social care, adoption, fostering and children’s centres as well as schools.

Islington was praised for having twice the number of “good” or “outstanding” schools as the national average, all special schools and pupil referral units rated “outstanding” or “good”, and for working hard to tackle the achievement gap between rich and poor pupils.

Islington Council’s director of children’s services, Eleanor Schooling, said: “I would like to thank all our staff, the voluntary sector and all our partners for their hard work in making our services better than ever before.

“I am confident we will be able to continue this work in future as we are never complacent.

“There are still some areas where we want to improve further. I am very proud of all our schools and in particular their commitment to helping children from poorer families to achieve good results.”