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.

Some of you are talking a load of uninformed rubbish.

First of all, x tables are on the STATE school curriculum - my Y2 class know 2,5,10,3s very well by now.

Secondly, we do a phonics/reading scheme daily and 17/28 of my Y2 class are free readers. We do a guided reading group once a week and they read most nights with parents.

We do 20 minutes handwriting practice DAILY.

We have spelling tests virtually every day, because of the phonics scheme we run.

I do not see the virtue of column addition until childern know what they are doing with number lines. However, my top group ar now doing both methods efficiently.

Get your facts right Beenbeta and emy. You're talking out of your XXXXes.

Get your facts right Beenbeta and emy. You're talking out of your XXXXes.

Ahem.....we are not talking out of our a**s.

YOU might be doing all this, well done. I wish my children came to your school.

But loads of schools are not. You just have to come on here and read the zillions of threads that bear witness to this fact.

I know exactly what happens in my children's school thank you very much, and I am not talking out of ignorance when I say that the basics are being touched upon rather than constantly reinforced.

I just take offence to these generalisations, particularly in threads like this where there are so many sweeping statements being made about 'quality' of education, generally accompanied with patronising comments about the state sector and those who use it.

I know, it must be frustrating, especially if you are a teacher. And it certainly isn't about private vs state in my opinion, more pot luck in terms of class sizes, low level disruption, teacher's experience/ability and leadership from the head.

But I suppose as a parent, when you get your child in that situation, it can be equally frustrating - and I guess emotional because it's your child after all who's not getting the education they deserve, and in many cases there is not an awful lot you can do.

Wordfactory, that radio programme sounds v interesting, what station/date was it on? (might try to listen to it)

Radio 4 - possibly the daily cervix - though can't be 100% sure.

Try a search for the 'moral legacy', I think that's what the research doc is called.

I think the FT league table is the best, and the most interesting information is the added value figure.

My Year 2 child in state school does tables and spelling tests every week. She also learns punctuation and my Year 6 DS knows more about punctuation than the people I work with. Done survey so they do this at state school.

Of course and there are state schools in the top 1000 by A level results on the FT tables. Most of the better ones are selective state schools as you'd expect or in rich areas.

Which makes you wonder why you need to look at league tables?!

1. Selective, private education.
2. Selective education.
3. Non selective, private education.
4. Non selective education in rich areas.

Down to non selective in deprived areas.

My point in the very first post-league tables are OK for a quick reference but nothing more.

You can use them if you don't know a city-e.g. if I wanted to know a good middle class area in Sheffield (a city I don't know) the league table would tell me.

2 and 4 should read state and you could bracket 1&2 and then 3&4.

exotic - IMO mainly to check for exceptions to expectation, especially if a school you think should have a high rating doesn't.

exoticfruits I think your list is spot on as a generalisation. And it needs to be used in order to interpret these league tables. The raw league tables are pretty meaningless otherwise. Statistics are only useful if you know how to correctly interpret them.

But I do think the league tables tell us something. Just not everything.

I think it would be an utter disgrace if a school that cherry picks the best and pays thousands to take them fails to have a high rating!!!!
It would also be an utter disgrace if they cherry pick the best and don't charge!
How dare they?! (Luckily they don't-they take the pupils and produce the goods).

They do tell us something-MrsMipp- they tell us that schools that select the brightest get the best results and they tell us where to find a good middle class housing area!

I do think they really do help. Some perhaps not very clever private school parents might think I pay therefore it will be great and yet some state schools are better than not so good privates. Or they think XYZ private school is wonderful because the unfroms are nice and they ahve no idea you go to XYZ private if you're pretty thick and no one gets to good universities from there. These league tables help parents sort out their Manchester Grammars from the alsorans and plenty of parents particularly first time buyers of private schools sometimes have very wrong views about which private schools are academically the best. Information is power.

As they exist it is silly not to use them, but they are no substitute for visiting on a normal working day.
Private doesn't =good!
State has the whole range from oustanding to 'wouldn't touch with a barge pole', so does private and even those who home educate come in the range outstanding to dire.
You then have to bear in mind that what is a brilliant school for one DC isn't necessarily brilliant for another. A highly selective academic school isn't good for the average or the practical, a school that specialises in music won't suit the tone deaf etc etc.
Use the league table, but bear in mind it is about bottom in useful information.

yes, but it's not ALL about exam results at 16/18, is it? Some parents choose private over state due to smaller class sizes, practical reasons such as wanting local school but not being happy with state provision in local area..

Exactly Expat-visit the school-there is no substitute.

Many moons ago, before the advent of these league tables, I temp'ed for an examination board. One of my very exciting jobs was to type up result slips and certificates. (The fantastically advanced(!) computing systems meant that large numbers still had to be typed individually.)

I went to a top 50 selective independent, and I was absolutely gob-smacked at how relatively poor a lot of the results at some of the local private schools were - all c's and d's and e's for GCSE. It was certainly eye opening. They weren't any better than the results from the local comps.

As they exist it is silly not to use them, but they are no substitute for visiting on a normal working day.

Absolutely!

Ha! Local grammar not only up 200 places on last year, but now ranked higher than the up-their-own-arse private school I used to work at. Get in...

It stands to reason that some private schools will have low results, it doesn't follow that because you have money your DC will have a high IQ!
Most DCs are average, and they are not suited to a highly academic school which is why those that are highly academic are selective.
People seem to have the weird idea that selective, high achieving schools are best, when they are merely best for highly academic DCs.(not those whose parents want them to be highly academic!)

So lots of the top schools are selective single sex day privates mostly in the SE. Why would a child at those look after you less than a child at a rough comp?