idiots guide to league tables.

[morethanpotatoprints]

Just that really. Can anybody link to something that explains all there is to know.

What should you be looking for to see how well a school does with children who are average?

Try this link to the Dfes website. I've used the school that Gove Junior is going to as an example but you can put your own criteria in the search box at the top.
It shows the overall percentage of pupils in the school getting "5 or more A*-C GCSE" but if you scroll a bit further down it analyses the data into low/middle/high attainers. In this case the overall 86% is made up of low=23%, middle=80% and high=100%.

I presume that the middle-attainers figure is the one you want to know. I don't know if this particular information is available in League Table form; I think you'll have to do some searches on local schools and create your own Table.

The other piece of key data available is the point score per pupil. This tells you how many are getting the higher grades and not just scraping Cs. There is information on the tariff (points) for each grade and also the average grade of GCSE is given for low, middle and high attainers. This is very illuminating as there are marked differences in grades attained by the three groups in differing schools. This would be key information for the middle attainers. The value added score is also useful.

Thank you both for that info.
I had seen several percentages for various things on schools websites but was unable to make sense of what it all meant.
many thanks.

I'd avoid looking at the percentage of 5A*-C as a measure of success for 'mid ability' students at a secondary school - it hides too much info.

One school could find mid ability students walking out, on average, with 5C's and 3D's whilst another may get 5B's and 3C's yet both would score equally well on this measure.

Best bet is the 'average grade per entry' for mid ability students or 'Value Added' for mid ability students as a school improving grades from a C to a B makes a difference to these scores.

Be a little wary of schools that have low average numbers of GCSE's for mid ability students as they may have previously taken advantage of some of the non-GCSE qualifications that are being discontinued this year because they are no longer considered genuinely equal to GCSEs or useful for students.