UK comp tops the PISA charts

I think you might be a bit behind the times, Manumission!

But glad you are happy, wherever you went.

The Brighton College headline is a bit disingenuous, granted, as no country could be academically selective. But the article is quite factual it seems.

The APS news item is written rather misleadingly, probably unintentionally. It's a great result for a fully comprehensive school. But sentences like this - In fact, their average performance far exceeded that in any of the seventy-five countries - makes it sound as if they exceeded any school rather than the average of any country. And this sentence - It doesn’t include individual student results but remarkably this cohort of APS students topped the chart - suggests that they were at the top of all the schools who took part.

That Brighton College news item is a bit disingenuous -it's a very selective school so really it would be very strange if it did not come out ahead of any individual country - assuming that that country was not cheating.

So actually the headline about topping the PISA charts is just plain wrong. They did better than the average for Singapore (and I'm not knocking it all - it's a great result) but they were not even the highest performing school in the UK, never mind the world. We have no idea how all the indivdual schools did, as the previous poster points out.

I know nothing about this school so can't comment on how good their results are, but one has to remember that the published PISA results are just national or territorial averages with individual results by school that will be much higher and much lower than the published averages.

Brighton College, which I image would have a much more privileged intake, has published significantly higher results:

www.brightoncollege.org.uk/college/college-news/item/9230

There may still be many many a school with significantly higher results than Brighton College. Averages can be very misleading.

Well done to Alexandra Park. I wonder how the other 206 schools did. It would be interesting to see if there were any patterns based on geography and the like.

Reflux and Justchanged You've both expressed my feelings better than I did. Thank you.

I agree. It's a fantastic result for a genuine comprehensive. Just 15 years ago, London comps were considered the worst in the country, and now naysayers talk as if it's natural that they would be the best. Well done, APS!

The school has a national average amount of free school meal children and a mixed catchment - estates as well as houses. An above average amount of SEN pupils. No need to be churlish about a genuine success story. On funding, Haringey schools are treated as outer London, so less well-funded than inner London schools like Camden or Islington, though of course APS benefits from pupil premium funding.

Stand corrected although surely the figures are close enough to say that school has national average and is not especially privileged?

Says on gov league table website 27% have had free school meals in the past 6 years and 29% is the national average.

How depressing. If this was a grammar the thread would be flooded with people saying how this proved that grammars should be imposed everywhere. Yet because it's a comp all people can do is decry it.

25% of pupils at this school are disadvantaged - that's above the national average. And those pupils do really well - 57% get 5+ GCSES. In the selective counties that figure is 34%.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

GreenGinger2 The OECD also say it is the state schools with similar affluence to pupils in private schools that do well in these tests.

So did all the private schools that do well in those test outperform this state school?

London schools need more money because of the London weighting - everything is more expensive. In my area young teachers can barely afford to rent, never mind buy, a home.

They're richer because they're more aspirational.

That's not to say all aspirational prod are rich of course. Many of us aspire to other things than money. But it's probably fair to say that all rich people are , for the most part, aspirational. Unless they've just won the lottery or had a big inheritance of course.

Some of the parents at that school will be richer than parents who send their DC to private schools in other parts of the country.

Reflux compared to areas in Britain miles away from London with high numbers of unemployment little aspiration,few immigrant families....... sorry I don't care how far the catchment goes,it's a world away. The lowest catchment in London will be out of the reach of the maj of families in Britain.

London also has heaps more funding. Said school overlooks a golf course and has acres of land to play with. Wonder how the comps with crumbling buildings,zero land,no London funding,zero aspirational families fare? Pointless stats. You pick away at Pisa tests and you see how unreliable they are.

The OECD also say it is the state schools with similar affluence to pupils in private schools that do well in these tests. Nuff said.

all UK schools who did well were among the most advantaged in the UK in terms of social economics and cultural status.

Why is anyone surprised or even depressed by that?

Aspirational families support their children to do well at school. No matter how brilliant the schools, the children from the supportive families will always do better because they are learning at home too ... even if not academically, then socially and culturally. And by "aspirational" I don't mean "middle-class" - I mean aspirational. Almost by definition there are plenty of aspirational families in immigrant/migrant populations who won't stay at the bottom of the tree for more than a generation or so. They will be the new middle class eventually.

Cities tend to have more migrants and therefore more aspirational families than rural areas, and London is the biggest city in the UK. Of course it is going to top the league (so long as teachers can afford to live there).

We need to worry about areas that have entrenched poverty-of-aspiration, and we need to pour resources into bouncing them out of it, but we shouldn't be surprised or depressed if they don't top any league tables in the meantime.

They have below average levels of kids on FSM, wonder what the average house price is near Muswell Hill.

Hmm frankly I'd be more impressed if it was a non London school in say a coastal area or a Northern town with high numbers of white working class boys and few immigrant families.

The school itself says it has some very privileged children. According to that BBC link all UK schools who did well were among the most advantaged in the UK in terms of social economics and cultural status.

Fantastic performance by the school. With about 25% disadvantaged pupils its clearly doing a fantastic job for all sections of the community.
By the way 57% of disadvantaged pupils in the school get 5+ GCSEs, the same as the average for all pupils in Kent. Which is why of course the govt wants to follow the Kent model for education rather than the Alexandra Park one. Sigh.

That's just brilliant!

Well done to them.

Muswell Hill "rough"
ROTFLMAOPMPL
you would not know rough if it slapped you in the face if you think Muswell hill is rough