The Real School League Tables

hard to help - yes - but not impossible, and best time to start is when they are little children, nice and malleable with the whole world out there waiting for them.

Instead loadsw of kids from sad backgrounds end up at underresourced schools with a high turn over of staff, unable to deal with disruption in the class room and sometimes even violence in the playground. it is so heartbreaking that is all set out for them, the inevitability of their lives, when they are only 5 years old.

I agree with your bottom line yes

trouble is I think those who cause the issues do tend to come from the ahrd to help groups; there seems to be a dual poor sector of society, one group that is very much part of the mainstream but with less money (that would be us) and anothe group that does seme to ahve a subculture.

I feel even less part fo that then the rather well off parents at the boy's school.

yep, as i said above, just stereotyping to make my point! no need for flood of 'well i am really poor and have no GCSEs and am actually a paragon of virtue' type posts - I am well aware that I am massvely generalising. But you've got to accept that most people engaging in anti social behaviour that impacts on others around them are not doing so from a position of having had a charmed life, good education, good job prospects etc. I'm not saying ALL people in that situation are like that, nor that ALL people who have had charmed lives are therefore utterly charming themselves. I am just saying, you know, there is a link.

Bottom line - we all benefit if everyone is ok.

And then if everyone had a super education, it wouldn't matter if your parents have lots of money or not and everyone who is reasonably bright could get top grades.

Then those in power would have to do something about the dumbing down of exams, because lots more students would get the top grades.

Then they could make exams harder so that only the most intelligent get the top grades (again regardless of their parents' income), and the vast majority don't get top grades.

Then something will have to be done about teaching more vocational subjects to those not bright enough to go to university.

Then you wouldn't have lots of students at university who shouldn't be there (again regardless of their parents' income). And so on and so forth

Giving everyone a super education sounds fine to me

lostitnow I assume youa r4 aware that most of us who went to poor schools don't do any of those things?

And are indeed far more likely to be pushing our own little Tabitha (or indeed Sebastian) on the swings wearing nice clothes, even if it means we had to save up far ,onger for them to have them?

Just checking.

How is giving everyone a decent education linked to playing loud music?

Plus, giving everyone a super education, while admirable, isn't going to do much if there aren't super jobs for everyone to go and work in.

i know plenty of people who are very agressive and have good educations and good jobs as well. And lots of people mug others for money for drugs, having a decent education doesn't stop that.

I think you are looking to totally reorganise society, with wealth completely redistributed and everyone working towards the common good aren't you? Good luck with that

Or have those mean looking dogs in the park while we are trying to push little Tabitha and Oscar on the swings while dressed in Organic cotton clothes!

But it'd be nicer for them if no one wanted to mug them, burgle their houses, be agrresive on public transport or play loud music in their houses all night. I know all of that wouldn't be solved by everyone going to a decent school, but I do think that the kind of anger at society that comes from being disenfranchised through poverty / lack of opportunities etc, does lead to a lot of the anti social behaviour that impacts on us all, privilged and not.

It wouldn't be nicer for the rich and powerful if it took their privilege away though, I'm sure they wouldn't be keen on that at all.

o i know it is not allof them, i agree, i was just stereotyping to make my point that even though it means you are more likely to get better exam results blah blah, it is not necessarily a quicker or better or more guaranteed route to happiness. Loads of my mates went to private school, love them all, clever, lovely, humane people who don't work in banks all day, but still, a fairer society would be a whole lot nicer for us all, not just those at the bottom of the heap!

"Not only lovely for them, but lovely for the higher rate tax payers too - imagine a society in which everyone is educated to a high standard."

Well no that would be disasterous for the higher rate tax payers and others who can afford to send their children private. Why would they want all that competition for the top jobs? Why would they want clever poorer people given the opportunities which are at the moment reserved for wealthy averge people?

Also many people from private schools do not go on to have super high powered jobs, or even city type jobs. Yes a higher proportion are from those schools, but its by no means a certainty. The personality of the child has a huge amount of bearing.

It really is just so depressing that children whose parents can pay for their education end up at schools where they are more likely to get better exam results, regardless of their own actual individual intelligence. It is unfair and I think it shows us up as a country that doesn't value fair play or equality, but instead value those who stampede to the top, trampling over others, in order to ensure their child maintains and even extends the gap between them and the vast majority of the rest of the population in terms of income. If those who could afford private school fees paid just a tiny bit more income tax each, everyone could have small class sizes, orchestras, choirs and extra tuition at exam time. Wouldn't that be lovely? Not only lovely for them, but lovely for the higher rate tax payers too - imagine a society in which everyone is educated to a high standard. How great that would be, no one angry and frustrated because society has let them down, or because their lack of education means they cannot participate fully, no parents trying to raise their children whilst not really being able to read properly themselves, no one with absolutely no job prospects as everyone has had a decent education and has drawn self esteem from that. It'd be so much nicer all round if these snooty private schools were all closed down in the morning.

Loads of those private school graduates will go on to work in the big banks and financial institutes in the city, work 16 hours a day , often in a sexist, racist, bullying environment, have no time to themselves or for their families, and all explode from stress when they are 35, give it all up to become a poet and go and live in a wooden hut on the outskirts of glasgow.

Everyone achieves happiness in the end.

Amen.

some state schools don't have sixth forms so wouldn't feature in that table

Definitely no to making exams easier, I don't think I suggested that.

I just don't understand how a school can be described as oustanding or excellent when it is turning out vast numbers of students without the qualifactions to get an entry level office job. It is not all GCSEs A-C, it is any 5 including maths and english. I mean GCSEs are easy, they are the most basic qualification. The people around here aren't all mind blowingly stupid or anything. It's not a school which has a difficult intake either. So it's not a "value added" type thing.

I don't get it.

Pity there aren't league tables to tell you exactly how YOUR child is going to do. After all at the end of the day that's what parent's are really concerned about - their child not the other couple of hundred!

V true lounge lizard

Back home we had a very diferent system (England but unusual nonetheless) where the only place to deliver A Levels outside private (and actually private meant a trip out) was a tertiary college. An excellent tertiary college, with decent results. On paper though they only sent say 0.01% (or whatever it was) to Oxbridge becuase their numbers of all abilities were so huge; however in actuality they still provably ahd the ability to develop good potential when it existed.

Which surely is what actually mattered?

And the fact that the children who weren't as academic still got good quality access to the things they wished to qualify in of course, becuase it is employment and eprosnal success that matters in the long term.

Re the outstanding comp with only 50% getting A - C or whatever. There are ALWAYS going to be children who are less bright than others. Lowering the standards so that more pass these exams is not the solution.

The bright can all now pass these exams with the highest grades with minimal effort. The schools who select the brightest children (whether private or state) would be doing a very bad job if all of them DIDN'T get the very top grades (especially as many of the pupils tend to be very self motivated, often have extra tutoring, parents paying lots of money for results, successful parents etc etc)

What is alarming is the difference in results between an average child at an average comprehensive and one at an average private school. But that's going off topic a bit .

It is hardly surprising that the schools listed in the FT are top of the league tables, due to their intake and the relative ease of the examinations they are taking.

So what that article tells me yet agin is that people in Wales don't exist

if you have a child who wants to do more "traditional" subjects, so that you can see which ones are good at those

You can see those, but you may miss schools which are equally good at traditional subjects but which also offer some of the others, thereby buggering this particular statistical treatment.

Surely it is useful

if you have a child who wants to do more "traditional" subjects, so that you can see which ones are good at those

the table includes the top 1000 schools, it's not like it's the top 10 and they are all private. there are loads of state schools to look at on there.

I took very "traditional" subjects for GCSE and A Level - if I have a child who wants to do those things and be taught well (and teaching some of those subjects is a real skill) then it makes sense to see which schools get good results in those areas

exactly as if I had a child who wanted to go to stage school I would look at all of them, see what people ended up doing etc.

Or sports

Or whatever.

I have also recently realised that OFSTED is a bit random - there was me thinking that the local comp was good given that its OFSTED was excellent or outstanding. Then I saw the GCSE results and realised that nearly 50% of children are leaving without 5 A-C passes including maths and english at GCSE. That is not excellent or outstanding by any stretch.

Thus the more information available the better. What people choose to do with it is up to them. If these tables show a big disparity in the results between private and state education then that is useful to know surely as well? As if you have a set of stats which says "everything is fine and state schools are just as good once you factor in the selection at private" then you don't know to get irate about inequalities. Because you won't know they're there.

You need to look at this table differently. Obviously the top 20 or so schools are not taking in very average children and churning them out with these results, they are highly selective. If your child fits the bill for a highly selective school (private/state) then check the table to see that they are getting the best out of these kids.

If your child needs a school which is not quite so pressurised but is bright, check the ethos of the school (no table will show this) and then see that a good percentage of kids are doing well in these academic subjects. And so on. No table can be looked at in isolation, but at least this one gets rid of all the non-academic subjects so you can see the specific results.

Don't bother with this table if you have a child gifted in art and drama etc. Horses for courses.

*been

Well, that's very kind of you.

Personally, I think it only serves the purpose of showing the two tier education system that exists in this country. Those successful people with money are able to buy their children better results, and thus places at top universities, better careers etc.

Unfortunately some people are fooled into thinking that 10 GCES in basket weaving etc are equal to 10 in proper academic subjects.

However, most people don't have a choice as to where they send their children to school, and many reasonably bright children would be just as capable as getting the same top results were they able to attend those 'top' schools.

Luckily, the Oxbridge admission system, plus other top universities seem to be taking this into account these days, by setting their own entrance tests which really sorts out who is a seriously academic student and who has just be taught very well.

It would be absolutely dreadful to think that some pupils would be put off applying to the top institutions as they haven't attended those schools, imagining themselves some kind of failure for not having parents with enough money to pay for their education, even though they are equally intelligent.