To ask is this surprising?

[KeeryAnn]

The school my partner went to is in a socially deprived area -very high numbers of free school meals. The school has been mentioned on MN actually as having a working class intake and poor results. My partner left some years ago - he only got one GCSE at grade C - nothing else. I'd say he's of average academic intelligence but wanted a job you don't need academic qualifications for. I was reading some stuff online about the school and it said absolutely no pupils in the school in a particular academic year got a Grade C GCSE or above in history. Is this unusual? FWIW, the school doesn't offer A Levels

Unusual.
At a guess, they had low uptake for history that year - perhaps the subject had not been popular in KS3; perhaps the geography department was fantastic and most kids opted for that. (Weaker schools are sometimes smaller schools, which sometimes means more restrictions on GCSE options, so it may have been a straight choice between the two.)
I would think that history is a difficult one for anyone with low literacy levels, and the content is huge.

Hopefully, when those results came out, the school will have looked at which pupils were taking history, and whether their history grade was in line with their other grades. If there were plenty of kids taking history who got mostly C+ in other subjects, then you'd worry that the teaching was at fault, but if most of the kids doing history were getting low grades in other subjects too, then you can't really blame the teacher.

Thank you - interesting observation - I can definitely see how history would be difficult for pupils with low literacy

Probably unusual but I've heard of it happening, in my year 13 students took gcse dance and they all failed, the year group two years above us nobody passed french. If the results are generally low and combined with maybe a rubbish teacher that year, or the first year of a new syllabus or something.

It takes a special type of teacher to teach and survive and be successful in a deprived area where they are up against cultural obstacles, gangs, poor home life/no home support, plus adding in additonal needs that havnt been identified, behavioural issues etc.

I see it in northern ireland. We still have the grammar system so last year primary kids sit a test to see if they can get a free grammar school place. Great for those kids who are smart and have motivated parents and don't have learning disabilities. So grammar schools do amazing and most parents want there kids to attend.

However the high schools then take the left over kids as such. They don't get more funding or smaller class sizes or specialised teachers who can work with sen kids. They are left to deal with them the best they can.

The grammar system could work IF the non selective schools had much more funding. Smaller classes, more nurture groups, therapy for kids with sen. There's no much potential and so many awesome teachers