24/08/2017 London News

I'm Claudia-Liza Armah. so it's goodbye from me,

Teenagers across London are receiving their GCSE results,

in a year that saw tougher exams introduced in English and Maths.

A free school in Feltham, which only opened five years ago,

hoped to raise standards in the area.

This is Reach Academy's first Poloz set of GCSE results and Helen Drew

has been finding out if their work is paid off.

Getting exam results is a familiar sight, but not reach Academy,

Feltham. They only opened in 2012, so this is the very first group to

have that GCSEs. It's also the first year under the new grading system,

where some subjects are awarded numbers nine, 21, the other is the

traditional Eight, B and C. I got six Eight stars. I got a nine in

maths, I wasn't expecting it at all. I passed English and maths. I got

Bs, I'm proud of that because I didn't think I would do well. I was

nervous. Reached Academy is a free School, meaning its government

funded but not controlled by the local authority. It was set up by a

group of teachers who are delighted with today's results. Nationally and

in the area it's better than perhaps would have been expected of a school

that serve the community like ours, but it goes to show that when you

work hard and every person in the building comes to work everyday

loving their job and working really diligently towards a common goal,

what can be achieved. One student who has overcome lots of

difficulties is Nikhita Shaunak. She barely spoke at primary school and

was incredibly shy when she came here. I got an A in history and our

e-commerce A star in English language and B in physics and I

thought I was terrible! Are you really proud of yourself? Yes. And

say her mum is proud is an understatement. Yes, she's gone from

the bottom right up to the top. It's amazing, absolutely fantastic. I

think you're going to treat her today? Absolutely. This year's

results have shown the biggest year decline across the country, here

Feltham, tears of joy. Now as part of our series

looking at how we deal with waste in the capital,

today we're focusing on food waste, which costs

London ?50 million a year. Dan Freedman is at a food recycling

centre, which says only 18 out of 33 councils collect

food waste separately. I'm at Bio Collectors

in Mitcham in Surrey, the largest collector and recycler

of food waste in London. Have a look at what they've

collected already today. This is about ten

tonnes of food waste. They'll be collecting 150 tonnes

by the close of play today, and they'll turn it into fertiliser,

into electricity, and into gas. Paul, you have some of this

fertiliser to have a look at. How does it get from this food

waste, to this fertiliser? So what we do here is a process

called anaerobic digestion, where we take the raw food waste

and we take all the nasty things from it, like packaging

and plastics and things. We put it through a process

which includes our anaerobic digestion tanks, where we create

methane gas, and the methane gas we purify and we use that

to generate electricity and bio methane, which we inject

into the gas grid. The local houses can use that

gas in their cookers. The smell, as you'd expect,

is quite overpowering. The smell is what you'd typically

expect from your bin. Paul, thank you, fascinating to find

out what they do with food Dan Friedman reporting from Mitcham

earlier. An 800-year-old stone coffin

was damaged when visitors to a museum in Essex put

a child inside it. Part of it tumbled over

and a chunk fell off at Prittlewell Priory Museum in

Southend. A spokesperson says staff

were "shocked and upset" Those responsible were caught

on CCTV, but ran off The weighing scales are being

brought out and take measures at London zoo today, as the animals

prepare for their annual way. Home to more than 700 different species,

zookeepers regularly record the heights and weights of all the

creatures at the zoo was a way of monitoring their overall well-being.

This month, the BBC has been marking 70 years since India

But what does the anniversary mean for those of Indian descent

Rajindar Singh Dhatt, who is 95, was a freedom fighter

He later joined the British army during World War two.

Rajindar and his family have been speaking to BBC

When I hear my grandad's story, it doesn't feel real to me,

I can't put him being in a war and him being my grandad

But when I do hear, it makes me feel quite emotional, to be honest.

I can't comprehend how he went through what he went through.

Rajindar Singh Dhatt joined the British Army

in 1941, when he lived in Punjab, pre-partition India.

But before he fought with the British, he saw

Before you joined the British Army you were a freedom fighter.

India gained independence in 1947, but with it came division

and the biggest mass migration of all time, which Rajindar Singh

What happened at that time is quite sad.

Bloodshed, killings on both sides, and it's heartbreaking.

What does independence mean to British-born Amrit?

Personally I don't know what it means to me.

I don't think I've really thought about it too much.

Obviously he's done what he's done so we can have a better life

and so he could come here and give us what we have now,

Now the weather, with Elizabeth Rizzini.

It was a slightly cooler start to this morning and we also

patches around as well, but they lifted nice

replaced by blue sky and a bit of high cloud.

A vineyard in Stratford as captured by our weather watcher here.

Sunny spells for the rest of the afternoon with more cloud

developing, but it should stay dry, feeling pleasantly

warm in the brightness and the sunshine and

the westerly breeze, temperatures peaking

at around 22 or maybe 23 degrees Celsius.

Any showers will be largely confined to the West and will be

very light in nature, most of us will stay dry.

Some late brightness this evening, the sun setting and

And then overnight tonight, not a lot to

There should be lots of clear spells around, temperatures possibly

dipping a touch lower than they were last night down

to about 12 or 13 Celsius in most areas.

And again some mist and fog patches forming

into tomorrow morning, with even lighter winds.

But again they are going to lift very quickly,

Light winds, so feeling pretty good in the

sunshine, lots of that through the morning and then more cloud

developing as we would expect to see to the afternoon.

Top temperatures peaking tomorrow at 25, maybe even

And then that leads us to the bank holiday weekend.

I think at the moment it's looking mostly dry, with

sunshine, nice and warm, temperatures generally between low

But still quite a lot of uncertainty around the

It could still change and there may well be some showers

Otherwise, temperatures up to 24 degrees.

Feeling a touch fresher I think as we head into Monday.

That westerly breeze will start to pick up too.

Asad Ahmad will be here with our 6:30pm evening programme.

But for now, from us all, a very good afternoon.