Why is there a big regional variation in the performance of independent schools?

[ChocolateWombat]

Looking at The Times' Parent Power results tables of Independnt schools, I notice a huge disparity of results by region.

The tables list the top 150 schools nationally by A Level (or equivalent) and GCSE in terms of A_B at A Level and A/A at A level. There are then regional tables too.

Of the top 150 nationally, 40 of the top 50 are in London or the South East. When you look at the regional tables which tend to show perhaps the top 20 or 30 schools, in London or the South East, you need to be in the top 50 to 0 schools to appear, but in other regions, there are often only 1 or 2 schools that are in the national too 100 and to find the top 20 or so schools, the tables have had to go down to ranks of well over 300 to get enough schools. When you look at the results of these schools, (and of all the schools in some regions) they are miles lower than the best schools - often poorer than very many state schools. (And I know being private doesn't make schools good - but these are the best if the regions)

So...my question is, why this massive and noticeable disparity? I understand there are more independent schools a more people willing to pay fees in London and the South East, but what is happening in the regional independents? The big names surely have plenty of funding and can attract good teachers and have good resources. The popular ones have plenty of applicants....so why the significantly lower results - it's the extent of the disparity that shocked me and I'd be interested to understand.

I've always known that lots of Independnet schools aren't that good - that being private in itself doesn't make schools good, but it also makes me wonder why some people are paying for schools that deliver these results - and before anyone jumps on this question, I know not all children are academically top notch, and I know people pay for far more than results.....but when the results really don't look that impressive in lots of a regions best schools, I do wonder. Is it just that the state schools are doing much worse? And if this is the case in both state and Independnet schools in an area, why?

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious.

Many thanks.

Well how selective are the schools you are looking at? you can't just look at the end results in a vacuum, you have to look at how selective they on entry as well.

London (and I say this as a non-Londoner) is a big place with a very large pool of people which also tends disproportionately to attract very ambitious and bright people, who turn into ambitious and bright parents that often have ambitious and bright kids.

Private schools know they have this kind of pool to choose from, so the best ones establish fiercely competitive criteria and are extremely difficult to enter (hence all the madness we see on these boards).

Super clever kids with super clever, sharp-elbowed parents tend to get good exam results. Not saying the teaching and curricula at these schools aren't good tooI'm sure they are, and I'm sure they are good in the regions too. But the type of pupil is just going to be different, on average, in London private schools at least, the selective ones.

There is more choice in London so you get some schoolsxwhich are very selective & others less so.

In my area there is only 1 independent senior school so they take anyone who passes the exam (set around a Sats Level 5)

My dd goes to an independent boarding school that is completely non selective academically.

FOr A Level the local independent asks for Grade B/6 GCSES which is actually less selective than many local comps.

As for why they pay for the results, I suppose that:

Some people have a lot of money to burn and like the nice facilities and extracurricula (remember that fees are cheaper in the regions).

Other people may be in a particular situation where the only state school open to them at a local level is a rubbish one and they cannot move house for whatever reason (God knows, I'd pay for private in similar circumstances).

Other people may just not look at the results, and just assume that private = better.

Other people may now be regretting the decision to pay all those fees, but by the time your kid has got their A-levels, it's a bit late to go to the school and demand a refund.

I come from the regions, and my cohort is full of people who went to private schools and are now doing the thing of "investing in a house in an area with a decent state school, topping up with tutoring etc., and then having enough money to give my kid a housing deposit instead."

I suspect that a lot of these not-very-remarkable private schools will fold eventually as the cost of private education continues to rise and as Brexit starts to bite (it'll be worse in the regions outside London and SE), because I just don't think all of them represent value for money.

I fully accept that highly selective private schools are in a league of their own, however--there will always be plenty of demand for those. It's just that there are relatively few of these highly selective private schools outside London and the immediate vicinity of London.

I pay for dd to go to private school because it’s a national centre of excellence for ballet & dance.

I paid for two years for Ds because our local school is truly appalling. Sadly he was very unhappy there but I managed to move him to a state school in the adjoining area that takes in at Year 9.

I think there is more competition/numbers for schools in London and the South East and therefore schools have to be selective, therefore getting better academic results. I’m in the north and of the 8 independent/public secondary schools within 60 miles radius, only 2 are selective.

What Kokeshi said. The "top" schools on these tables are those with the best exam results (not those adding most value).

London/SE has a disproportionate number of bright and ambitious/pushy parents, who often have bright and ambitious children. It also has a far greater number of parents who can afford fees. The selective schools in London can therefore choose their students from a very large, bright and ambitious pool. Unsurprisingly these students tend to get good grades.

As others have said, London will have lots of variety, so you will get not-selective private schools, "alternative ones" and hot-house ones.

It's hard to have that kind of choice in areas where there is a lower density of parents willing to pay fees and where weaker transportation links mean that it is harder to travel a bit for a school that you like. My parents' city (a bit northern city) has only a handful of private schools as few parents want to pay fees. If those schools were extremely selective, there wouldn't be a large enough pool of people within commuting distance who would make the grade.

BIG northern city. Need more coffee.

My DCs went to an independent school in the North because the local state schools were awful. The best of them got good results for the top pupils but not the others and was horrendously overcrowded so behaviour standards were poor. The others were failing in all senses (it is an area with poor educational outcomes on the whole)
It was the only way to give them a chance to succeed

In less than 10 years since they left, fees have doubled and the school has become less selective as they have to take anyone who can afford to pay

It’s no difficult it’s largely down to numbers of people and money. London has a population of over 8 million so a school can choose to be very selective because statistically there are lots very bright children and secondly the highest earners live in London.
My county has a population of just over 800 000 so statistically there are less super bright children we have two super selective grammars a handful of standard grammers and only one very selective independent.

Thanks everyone. I can see that some areas have much lower population density and certainly that incomes are lower, so there is less demand. I remain surprised by the more urban, densely populated areas, which have small numbers of independents plus don't seem to perform as well.
Re looking at added value and progress, whilst that is useful, here i am interested in raw results. The fantastic raw results of some independents certainly reflect how selective they are, but I think that is only to a point. Are we really saying that there aren't any highly highly selective schools outside of London and the South East? Plus, whilst a bigger population will mean more super bright children, are we saying that on a per head basis, there are significantly less super bright children outside of London and the South East? What role are the schools themselves playing in the results not being so impressive?

Kokechi makes some interesting points about why people choose these regional schools and their future. I understand why someone will pay for something that might not look academically great if either their child isn't academically great or if the local state schools are awful. I understand there are areas with very poor state schools, such as some of those coastal towns, but is it the case that there are huge areas without a single good state school? I agree with Koketchi that some people just decide that private=better. Some people assume private=selective too, because most have an exam, although don't realise that pretty much everyone gets in, so it's not really selective at all. And I agree that the future for lots of these not so impressive and perhaps dwindling schools is closure in the medium to long term, if people decide it's not worth paying for.

Thanks everyone - theres been a lot about funding gaps between London and other areas and school. Performance differences between London and elsewhere in the state system, but I'd never really considered it within the independent system too - those tables are striking.

DD’s Private School has excellent results, roughly equivalent to the closest Grammar
However, it’s completely non selective which makes their results even more impressive.
I agree that Private doesn’t necessarily equal better in all cases but DD’s School is much better on all counts than the Comp she was in catchment for

Easy answer. London schools have anything up to 10x too many pupils per space, regionals don’t, even the big ones (although they won’t say that!)

Simple mathematics.

We live just south of Manchester. My DD is about to start at an independent school in Manchester which has some of the best results in the country. It’s a girls school but there’s also another high performing girls school close by and I have 3 large thriving co-Ed schools within 20minute drive of me so there’s no shortage of places or it would seem, demand. However, whilst the huge co-ed schools near me are very popular and do reasonably well, their results are not in the same league as the school my daughter will attend. Despite this and the fact that state schools around here are very good, many local parents still opt to pay for them.

Meant to clarify that DD’s school is very highly selective and therefore does achieve on a par with the highly selective London schools. So I think it’s all down to numbers. When a school is highly sought after and thus can be truly highly selective then its results will inevitably reflect this.

I know people move for good schools, both state and independent. In my mind, that always meant moving a few miles to get into catchment for a state school or to within travelling distance for an independent - although, I guess I assumed that if you were paying you automatically had more choice wherever you were.

Sorry if I sound totally London/South East centric - I have lived in other places too, but not in the phase of life when I've been interested in schools and education.

Do you think people move from the regions to London or South East for the selective schools? Seems a big step and I always think of families moving out not in, because of getting more house for your money etc. Or have all those kids in the London/South East always been there? Would the schools elsewhere put people off moving away from the south east?

And of course, I can see there are lots of schools providing a really good education outside of London/South East and lots of individuals will do far better than individuals in another area - and at the end of the day, parents are interested in the outcomes of their own children most.

In London and South East a lot of students travel a long way for those high achieving schools. Schools which had catchments of 5 miles now draw from 20+ miles. Add to that that a lot of parents having got their children into those schools then pay for tutors so they don't "fall behind".

Well as I said, here, just south of Manchester we have a huge amount of independent schools to choose from. On top of that, Trafford has the grammar system with one of the top performing girls grammars in the country. So the very brightest girls are very well catered for here in both sectors. Boys have Manchester Grammar which is high achieving though not quite as high achieving as my daughter’s school. Boys in Trafford also have the equivalent boys’ grammar which again is high achieving though less so than the girls’. So I’d see no reason why anyone would relocate to London or the SE purely for schools. I imagine, although I’ve never checked, that schools such as the one my DD is about to start exist in other large urban areas. Although your data seems to contradict this.

Certainly the standards and results at my daughter’s school is similar to St Paul’s or City although it’s probably 300-400 girls sitting the test for 70 places rather than 1000+ sitting for 120 places.

Competition
pure and simple

Big cities like Birmingham and Manchester definitely have comparable independent schools to London and the South East. Less population means there is less demand so there may be only one or two schools in the region. Birmingham and Trafford also have grammar schools who deliver superb results in the state sector. More rural counties e.g Norfolk simply don't have the population/demand/competition to deliver the >80% A*/A GCSE results produced by their London/SE equivalents.

Crunch the numbers... London has 13% of the total UK population, Birmingham has 1%. London is home to 44% of the UK's High Net Worth individuals. You can see from this map that the density of private schools is also heavily skewed towards London and the south east. Add all these factors together and the outcome is not really a surprise.

www.isc.co.uk/schools/england/london-area/