The Real School League Tables

I'm not sure any of the tables really give a good picture - you need the raw data to see how they are doing in relevant subjects. Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure you will xenia ) but from what my DH said they are including the pupils who've done a mix of academic/other subjects which is bound to lower the averages of schools which offer such subjects. If you exclude those (on the assumption that your child won't be making those choices) then you get a different answer again.

My DH has entertained himself for hours with GCSE results of the schools we considered for DD this year. I can see he's going to be doing the same five years hence with A levels/leavers destinations to check 6th forms!

What point are you trying to prove Xenia? Yes we all know, thank you very much, that tables are fixed and that many don't include Maths and English etc.

People with lots of money in SE England get their children into 'top performing' schools. Of course they do!!! Doesn't make them any more intelligent than many children in other areas of the country at many other schools.

Did your children get into Oxbridge??? Plenty do from other schools too you know....

I really can't be bothered to inform you, yet again, that most people (i.e 95% or whatever of the ppopulation) can't afford private school fees, but luckily some people can manage to get into Oxbridge and other top universities by their intelligence alone.

I thought these FT ones were the ones with 'non hardcore academic' subjects removed, so that it's a better comparison (supposedly). All makes my brain ache.

Xenia, one northern girls' grammar I know of is pretty selective at year 7, but then has a large 6th form entry on the basis of GCSE results. That, in addition to its offering the discounted subjects such as drama, drops it down the FT table though it comes pretty high up the usual all-subject ones.

Its probably something to do with lower population density that it (a) has to serve as a wider 6th form college and (b) offer a wider range of subjects.

DH, being an over-analyser of data will in due course take apart the results to find the grading just for the (academic) subjects we expect our DD to be interested in. Frankly its irrelevant to me if the school comes lower on the FT table because some of her peers want to do drama along with their English and History, for instance, so long as they get solid results in sciences and maths.

Since when was Birmingham in the North?

North of Watford, I suppose.

There are more people and more people with money and more people from the middle classes in the South. So they can afford to pay the ( eye watering ) fees. So the schools thrive and can afford to be very, very choosy.

Just have to hope your child can make the grade.

Very interesting, thanks for the link Xenia

You are naughty Xenia.
I think that it is fair to say that people who are motivated by power and money gravitate to the SE because that is where the power and money are.
There tends to be a correlation between intelligence and earnings but that is all it is - a correlation, not an inevitability.

Sorry for mispelling Xenia

Xenai - as you know, over the last 30 years a large financial services economy has grown in the South East while there was an old declining industrial economy in the North. Young people have therefore tended to gravitate to where jobs are in the South East. They have had their children there too.

It is not about people in the North being intelligent or not. Its just that net migration of young people is into the South East (who had children) and net migration of older (childfree) people back to the North.

Xenia - we used to send our DSs to a private school in Oxford and it was very clear to us that the main reason why so many of the Top 20 schools in the South East /London are high up in the league tables is because it is this area that has the highest influx of young people who then eventually have children. It reflects the economy. The top schools in the South East /London can therefore afford to be super selective and very choosy. It does not mean they are necessarily better than a lower positioned school in the North.

Schools in the North have declined because the economy there supports less influx of people with families. They have to choose from a smaller pool and so cannot afford to be so choosy. There are still highly positoned excellent schools in the North like RGS Newcastle and St Peter's in York and Ermysteds in Skipton but many fewer than when I was young.

I would also say that the prevalence of single sex schools in the South East / London is much higher because again the demand is so high. Many former single sex private boarding and day schools in the North were forced to go mixed in the last 30 years because of declining numbers. Ampleforth in Yorkshire s a very good example of this. It has declined in the league tables and now gone mixed. As did my old school.

JackStarBright, I, too, am intrigued by the fact that the super selectives are outperformed by the top private schools in A level league tables.

It just proves that the private sector have got very good at ensuring their pupils get the top grades at A level, even the very 'average' ones.

Luckily the super selectives still have many pupils who do get the top grades, many of them without even breaking sweat. Also the Oxbridge entrance system seems to test more than just getting As at A level and so they are very successful there too.

Getting 3/4 As at A level now is no longer the best indicator of the top brains, more how good the school is at getting those grades. The private schools have got it down to a tee, presumably with smaller classes, lots of re-takes of modules etc etc, not particularly due to the pupils being spectacularly bright to start with IMO.

Xenia - the FT (yes, I read the paper version) suggested "the relative long term economic decline of much of the north" has an impact on private schools - With less applicants they are taking a wider ability range.

lazymum - yes it does tend to correlate quiet highly at the top of the league table but there again most of the really top schools hand out a lot of scholarships and also have very aggressive selection procedures so they are bound to come out top.

It is also true that differences at the top of these league tables are tiny - hence it is important to look at other factors as well. A good school with only a small scholarship endowment fund and a relatively light selection policy will always have a relatively lower ranking but could be doing just as well in the classrom for any given child as a Top 5 school in London.

In general, what me and DW say is that if a school is in the top 250 and it has a good smattering of Oxbridge entries every year but not very selective and not 'buying in' a lot of top students with scholarships then it is probably doing a good job in the classroom. Finding one of those schools but with decent facilities and a good ethos either in state or private and any child will have a good education.

The difference between a school ranked Top 5, Top 50 or Top 250 is very small and it will not make along run difference to a DCs life.

Abetadad - re your oxbridge places being the real measurement - school at top of FT table got 90 boys/girls into oxbridge this year out of about 185 pupils. They are also strict about doing 4 A levels and that looks like what keeps them at the top of the table.

Singersgirl - all good points. Yes, the real differences in raw scores (rather than positions on the table) are small.

Jackstarbright, I've wondered that about the grammars and private schools myself. A couple of possibilities:

1. some of the grammars are somehow not using as sensitive selection criteria (eg no interview, in some cases no creative writing or comprehension)
2. the teaching is actually not all that good in some of the grammars and the children just do well because they're all very bright
3. children equally bright, teaching equally good, but(relative)lack of money, large class sizes, poorer facilities mean results aren't as good.

Though A-level results are certainly not the be-all and end-all and these tables are accentuating tiny differences between schools that are all demonstrating excellent results.

jackstarbright - interstingly thats not the case with the handful of schools I am thinking about for my dcs - the expensive boarding option is way down the list, the indie days are midtable and the grammars at the top...as I would expect really.

Kendrick & Reading are my 2 local Grammars!

DD's comprehensive is featured low down the ranks there, but I am really interested that they are now publishing stats for percentage of children getting 10 A*-C grades. They say that most kids now sit 10 subjects, and so the usual 5 can be distorted by unusual/less regarded GCSE's.

Anyone else's school do that?

It's commonly agreed on here that the London 'super- selective' grammar schools are harder to get into than most of the London private schools - yet, according to these league tables, the selective independent schools have done so much better than the grammar schools. What is going on?

Really interesting as our local boys (ex Grammar) school scores more highly than I would have expected, and much higher than a local, much feted, Comp.