Financial Times Top 1000 Schools

[Xenia]

398 of the top 1000 are independent
Of the top 100 schools 80 are private and 19 grammar. Only one is a comp but it is a partially selective comprehensive.

(England only)
My older children's schools are 5th, 24th and 35th, not too bad.
www.ft.com/schoolmap-2011
The % ho get A or A* is proper subjects is a good measure and the fact they give the position in 2009 and 2008 too so you can see if a school has just had a bizarre year.

Well, I've just spent a bit more time looking at the FT rankings and it's all been very revealing. Our local comp, which has a good reputation is 1000+ higher than the local private secondary, so now my decision isn't quite so easy.

Rather heartening to see that dd1's grammar school had 100% leavers taking university places of which 78% RG. Also interesting to see that the boys grammar is ranked substantially lower down than the girls.

You see for someone like me who had a very poor education, no support at home but a heck of a lot of ambition these tables are very useful indeed. I did well despite my lack of education, but I said earlier my dc's will not have the same experience I did and now I have good information on my local schools I can form an action plan in regard to my younger two dc's.

1234 runs off to stockpile Bond 11+ books .

WE have a large traveller community near us. They go through primary school (just about) and have a lot of support and extra assistance. Then they drop out at 11, at secondary stage. SOmetimes tutors are sent out to them, but most of the time they help out with the horses or with paving driveways.

It beats me why this situation is allowed to continue. My daughter was friendly with one of the girls, who's now 12. She was bright and wanted to become a beautician. I used to help her with reading and she loved books and was always enthusiastic about choosing new ones and talking about them. This was when she was about six.

I now see her cycling up and down the street or taking horses from one paddock to another during school hours. I doubt she's been to school more than half a dozen times since September.

How can this be permissible? It's such a waste of a bright girl and it makes me mad. I am always wary of lightly accusing people of child abuse, but surely wilfully preventing a child from accessing education is pretty well abuse?

wordfactory what a brilliant story!

i may have related this story before on here, but it's worth retelling.

along similar lines, my DM volunteered to help children with their reading in a local primary school situated in a pretty deprived estate.

the first day she arrived at the school, the teacher presented her with a selection of books they were reading in class, and she was to get the 2-3 children under her wing to read them. she flicked through them and afterwards she told me they were generally about single parent families, divorce - the kind of RL stuff the children were living anyway. she weighed up the little ones sitting in front of her and then asked the teacher if she could use some books from the library instead. the teacher grudgingly agreed and mum picked out a new pile of books. it wasn't an overnight miracle, but she got those children reading in part because she offered them books that were full of fantasy/children having adventures. let's face it, we all need to let our imaginations run free!

once they had finished their first books, she took the children around the library with her so they could pick their next books. books they wanted to read. when the school year finished she bought them book tokens to say goodbye - i really hope they bought a cracking read with them and it has inspired them to keep learning.

Xenia,

I am interested in why you think the FT table is the best? I too have been following various tables since DS was born. Obviously, a few of the top schools are consistently within the top 10 in all the tables but their rankings seem to fluctuate. However, the same school seems to be at the top in the FT table for the last 5 years. Thx.

I certainly have had better things to do with my time than study the league tables in detail.I think I looked at the FT one before my older daughter started her school about 20 years ago although I might be wrong about the timing.

I have preferred it because it doesn't include soft A levels, it is based on A levels which are hareder than GCSEs and it used to and may still do give not just this year's ranking but previous ones and it covers state and private schools which some of the newspaper league tables which have been produced for years before the Government started churning out tables, did not all do.

My children's various schools have tended to have fairly consistent placings in it over that period too.

1234's comments show to me why these kinds of tables are useful.

The issue of what freedom we should allow parents is an interesting one. The state has always been able to intervene if children are not being educated. We can educate them at home but we have to educate them. However it doesn't have to be in the way the state prefers but they must be given some education. The gypsy references above I suspect are simply allowed to happen because they move around so it's hard to track them. LEAs have always had truancy officers roaming the streets looking for children who ought to be in school and asking why they aren't. I was in the Midlands yesterday on business. At the station the police were asking to see ID of some girls who might have been 13 and might have been 16. One was handing over her passport. I presume they were being asked why they were not at school in school hours.

Abr1de i hear you! to echo another MN related campaign - every child matters!

teej that sounds fantastic.

Passing on a love of literature is such a great thing to do. Apart from the obvious advantages to a child's education, it's something that they can enjoy for their whole life.

Xenia--they have lived in the same houses in the village for 15 years.

How can a thread on FT League tables have 436 posts!

Floreat, did you have a son at Eton?

What are these 'core' subjects? Presumably Englush, Maths, science, IT?

I would have thought the workplace would be more welcoming to students of sports science, media studies, etc - you know, modern subjects, relevant to the 21st century world.

'The trouble is the teachers have lost the will to control it and the situation is almost accepted.'

I don't agree that they've lost the will and there are some teachers who are amazingly talented at maintaining discipline without seemingly doing anything much (I wasn't one of these which is why I no longer work in a tough secondary). It really is a question of what do you do? You can't hit em. Fair enough. Often they don't come to detentions and some see detentions as a badge of honour anyway. Often their behaviour is a way of getting attention so by giving attention however negative you're feeding the problem. There's no good reasoning with some kids because they haven't been brought up with basic values or the ability to empathise with others. You can't exclude them especially not for low level disruption. So seriously what are you supposed to do?

Well, again, lots of teachers are forced to be all singing all dancing entertainers. You do bite-sized, multi-sensory activities. You do anything to maintain their attention and keep learning 'fun'. You praise good behaviour and try as far as possible to ignore the bad. So you minimise disruption and enable the maximum amount of concentrated learning to take place for the WHOLE class.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying the above is wrong and certainly I don't remember any more learning taking place in the classrooms I was in 30 years ago where teaching strategies generally involved 1) Copy of the board or take dictation 2) Listen to the teacher drone on about their pet topics 3) Copy out of text books.

What I'm saying is some students never learn self-discipline or to develop their concentration span.

I have to confess at this point that my own kids go to private school. I know that while they do some amazingly challenging and creative stuff at school some of what they do for classwork and homework is tedious and repetitive and possibly they don't learn a huge amount from it BUT I have to come to the understanding that this stuff is important because it teaches them from a very early age the idea of getting something done, working hard to get things over with so you can move on to stuff that's more interesting and it teaches them discipline and hard work. I really, really value these things as my kids routinely get their homework out after dinner and get it done and accept that hard work is part of what they have to do and then they can appreciate their free time more.

Stoats - The FT league table A-level subjects are the core academic ones which pupils aiming for a good university need to be studying.

IMO - the main (perhaps only) purpose of this league table is to provide parents of more academically able children information on the suitability of different schools for their dc's.

What are these 'core' subjects? Presumably Englush, Maths, science, IT?

I would have thought the workplace would be more welcoming to students of sports science, media studies, etc - you know, modern subjects, relevant to the 21st century world.

I can't think of anything more relevant to this century than real science, Maths and the English with which to be able to communicate.

Having worked in the media for years I never once employed anyone who had a qualification in media studies.

"I would have thought the workplace would be more welcoming to students of sports science, media studies, etc - you know, modern subjects, relevant to the 21st century world."

I'm really hoping that's not a serious comment...

Oh, that old chestnut. Do people not get tired of trotting out the same outdated prejudices?

I've either taught or know people who've gone on to be successful news producers, film makers, critics, actors, radio presenters, teachers and presenters, journalists and advertisers having done Media Studies at either A Level or university.

The BBC has a very successful youth programme for students doing Media Studies at A Level in disadvantaged areas.

A quick Google tells me that there is a current BBC presenter and Five Live football commentator who did Media Studies at Sheffield Hallam alone.

And a cameraman!

Oh and the following all did Media Studies:

former Channel 4 chief executive Michael Jackson (Westminster University); Sunday Times editor John Witherow (Cardiff School of Journalism); Royal Television Society Young Journalist of the Year 2004 Mark Daly (University of Stirling)

Yes, but it's like Jamie Oliver - yes the odd pupil who leaves schools without GCSEs or who did XYZ studies at univesrity might get hired buy the BBC but the Oxbridge First in English is going to find it much easier. In other words you can improve your standards by doing a better regarded degree - doesn't mean you can't make it with nothing at all etc but it's harder. Hence as someone said above the league tables do help those with reasonably academic children look at the best schools and work out which they are.

I'd like your definition of 'academic'.

Some people find maths extremely easy and don't need to do much work to get two good grades at A level. Is that being 'academic'?

For instance, why would maths 'more academic' than design? Product design encompasses many modern workplaces - advertising, marketing, packaging, etc, etc. and it is bloody hard work to get the A level.

I really think so many of you live in your ivory towers that are stuck somewhere in the 19th century. I hope time soon catches up with you and your arrogant and snobbish beliefs.

Looking at the current government, I think I will be disappointed.

Oh, I don't want people to do real science just so they can sit in an ivory tower. I want enough of them to do it well so we have the capability to regrow some real innovative industry again.

I don't know what product design entails but its the creating and building the actual product rather than the 'advertising, marketing, packaging' which really matters - if it includes that then more power to their elbows!

Just glanced at this thread again and something very obvious that strikes me but hasn't been said is the extraordinarily naive and parochial thinking in the "success = how much you earn" brigade

Although I guess it's quite convenient for you that not everyone is so self-obsessed and there are people who largely have a social conscious, desire to improve things for more than just their own family and complex skills and knowledge.

Y'know, like the people who teach your kids, nurse them with they are ill, deliver your babies for you and the like.

Having decent exam grades and perhaps a good degree from a RG uni will give you a greater range of choices about your future career.

With poor grades and a degree in a 'basket weaving' subject from a 3rd tier university your choices will be more limited.

We need gynae & obs consultants and we need midwives. Consultants get paid more but both jobs obviously require a degree of social concience and desire to improve the welfare of others.

It isnt all about money even if you do a job that earns a lot of money.