Any insight into why LEH's A Level results plummeted this year?

Also, I know people with daughters there and they seem to do plenty of STEM, coding, robotics, football, cadets etc. Maybe it's the name that makes it sound old-fashioned?

Agree that it doesn't seem that posh or old-fashioned really. They don't seem to wear blazers, and students are very multi-cultural.

@circacircle not sure how posh, upper class or traditional LEH is - maybe it is true, I don't know the school well can only tell from the public information.

What the government should do is undone the funind gap crisis on state education sector, create better fair playing field for university admission, but not "force" in favor of student from state sector, it does no good.

But also masking less prestigious universities. Even if you argue that LEH gives students a better chance of gaining a place at unis now this will not continue. We are on course for a Labour Government and there will be even more pressure from unis to recruit from state comprehensives. LEH is a bit of an anachronism today. It presents as posh, upper class girls school with a very traditional approach to education. I am not sure that this kind of school will survive over the next twenty years without significant changes

"It is well known that Waldegrave (local state comp) gets more proportionally into Oxbridge than LEH. It does leave a question mark about why LEH then?"

Is it true though? A quick look up shows what Oxbridge intake Waldegrave is about 5% on a 200 pupil year group. LEH, even at its worse is 7-8% in 2023 and it was about 10+% in the previous years.

Yes agree employer should to more blind applicantions and wider access, that includes masking the university name such as oxbridge...

Real life can be much harder for privately educated selective posh single sex students when they consider unis and jobs.
Unis are widening access all the time and increasingly so is the work place. There is far more emphasis on 'blind' applications in high powered companies.
Years ago my son worked for a while at the BBC. He mentioned that in his Department there were a couple of people from his Oxbridge college. The BBC has since made a big effort to recruit from a much wider range of unis. However, it has done my son no harm to go to a state comp, Cambridge and big industry.
LEH is seen as a niche, posh old fashioned girls school. It's one redeeming quality should be to guarantee outstanding academic results. It is well known that Waldegrave (local state comp) gets more proportionally into Oxbridge than LEH. It does leave a question mark about why LEH then?

“particular challenge for the selective schools like LEH that go through from 7 (or younger) as they effectively pick half their cohort at age 6/7”

If this is true (I don't know much about this school) 50% cohort from 7+ intake then yep it is much harder to control the quality of the public exam output for later stage, it would be more volatile. No matter how good the teachers are, the later the intake selection the higher correlation for the grades outcome.

I don't think you can 'blame' the intake, as it's such a selective school. And tbh, if it's such a great school, with such great quality teaching & opportunities, it should be able to bring up any lower level intake students to the highest level anyway, otherwise what are you paying for?! Can't blame stricter grade boundaries either, as all schools were in the same boat, and it only seems to have affected LEH locally. School obviously predicted higher grades than were achieved in many cases...and so the only tenable reason seems to me that they just took their eye off the ball...

Wel they can blame Covid and the fact that their Uxbridge results were so bad too on trend. As other SW London schools results were good as usual and Uxbridge intake did not shift.

DD just left LEH having had a surprise result at A level - two grades were bang on as predicted A star but third was shockingly a C- thankfully got insurance but not firm, which did happen across her year group and I would add many area schools in her friend group locally including those named above. Honestly, though, we were all surprised as well about the LEH results across the year. Interesting that area schools actually fared much better! It is true that some leave LEH at sixth form, but I think only say 15 tops (someone else can correct me). What I will say is my daughter absolutely loved her time at LEH and felt the teaching to be excellent. Possibly just a weaker cohort of girls- ? They did work hard but did they work hard enough as a student group, generally? Also of course they had no experience actually taking exams (true across other schools also though so not really a good point to raise here as standard for this cohort.). I am confident the next cohort and following will indeed achieve excellent results. Also, I am certain that teachers will be all over the students this year to make up for this slip last year!

I think the all 9s at GCSE is impossible for any school even those that withdraw candidates from subjects if they are underperforming (and I haven't heard of LEH being associated with this). I think that it must be a particular challenge for the selective schools like LEH that go through from 7 (or younger) as they effectively pick half their cohort at age 6/7.

@circacircle the latest GCSE 2023 is not selfmark, looking at the website LEH got 94% 9-7 and 82% 9-8, this will put the school in the top range of the selective schools. Only a handful of schools do better than this.

Not object your criticism on schools cheating on GCSE during covid years but to be frank a lot of state school cheating too, such as Tiffin girls was on the top 20 grade inflation schools.

Also, Katharine Birbalsingh, the head of MCS, it is a nonselective school, when her school have good GCSE years the school publish the GCSE result right away but somehow not this year? She start criticize other schools?

Did anyone hear Katharine Birbalsingh on the Today programme earlier this week call out independent schools for not achieving 100% nines at GCSEs.
Some independent schools want to scrap GCSEs. Yet LEH is super selective and all their pupils should be achieving top grades at GCSE but don't.
There was massive cheating by independent schools during COVID and teachers assessed student exams.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4483332-Grade-inflation-and-leading-independent-schools-in-London-and-beyond
It will take a long time for exam boards and universities to forgive the huge grade inflation and to trust these top schools again.

More precisely the intake academic quality

I think GCSE most accurate measurement of the school's academic quality

Did LEH mark the exams themselves in the past 2-3 years and this is the first year they were externally moderated due to covid? Perhaps they over marked the past few years as several private schools are seeing drops and overinflated own marking during covid is cited to be the reason.

No knowledge of LEH specifically, but generally Prefer to look at GCSE results as a guide of the school quality - at A level the teachers only have 18 months to build on the foundations from the previous school. I think there's a fairly high turnover for sixth for in single sex schools as many want to leave for a co-ed environment and others want to join for the more peaceful all-girls environment. Amongst friends with kids in private school many are considering a move to state for 6th form as they think it will give them a better chance for university applications, and foundations already laid through great teaching up to GCSE.

I'm sure still a lot of people from SW London would still apply for this school regardless anyway. It is oversubscribed every year and not sure how the 7 years away A levels statistics for one year would affect the parents decision.

Their latest GCSE still one of the best in that area...

I know on grapevine that many LEH girls missed their firm and insurance uni offers this year so results were a shock to the school as well. Its been a very tough year for this years A level students, with hangover covid impact, not having done real GCSEs, uncertainty, grade boundary increases and teacher complacency. I suspect a mixture of all of those for LEH.

@Coronateachingagain , there has always been movement, that hasn't changed, LEH starts at age 7 and after 9 years girls want a change and there are many options - Kings Wimbledon, Reeds, KGS etc.

In which case it would be interesting to know how many leave LEH after GCSEs

There is so much movement in girls schools at sixth form that I would only look at gcse results at this stage.

I am not very much concerned about one single year accident for school selection. GCSE results were still very good.

Which subjects haven't done well, or is it a dip across the board? Is it spiky or generally down?