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Secondary education

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Original poster

League tables- bullshit?

93 replies

3amEternal · 26/08/2016 07:51

Just musing on all the results boasting going on by all the local schools in the local rag and on Facebook. The league tables will be published this week. League tables were really low down on the list of reasons we had for selecting a school. Sure it's important to see the exam results but the league tables offer no context to the entry criteria for their pupils. Of course highly selective schools both state and independent (some who aggressively weed out at various points) are going to be higher in the league tables. Doesn't necessarily reflect the teaching or pastoral care. When we were looking around last year I was surprised at how many parents were league table obsessed above everything else. DD sat for independents and many of the families on offer days hadn't even bothered to visit until then! I was sceptical about the pastoral care of schools that aggressively maintain their league table positions by weeding out children that they themselves thought good enough a few years ago. Thoughts?

OP posts:
BoneyBackJefferson · 28/08/2016 17:03

Apologies yep its next year, getting ahead of myself.

TaIkinPeace · 28/08/2016 17:06

So boney
will all of the private schools keep their thick kids on roll on the off chance that they will get a 4
or will they kick the 5 and under crew out at Easter - as they have done for the last 40 years ?

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 28/08/2016 17:10

I think that the 4+ boundary is pegged at about the same proportion of pupils that currently get a C. But 4 will only be a passing grade for the 1st year. After that it becomes a 5 which probably equates to a high C/low B now.

Although there's probably been a few changes since then.

TaIkinPeace · 28/08/2016 17:14

alternatively
and its a radical thought
no shit sherlock
they
could stay with A being good
as its been the accepted good
worldwide for decades

gove was an arse
he's gone
1-9 should go with him

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 28/08/2016 17:59

Presumably, if the pass rate drops as much as it is predicted to employers, colleges and universities can drop their essential grade as much as they need to fill the places they have.

I don't suppose the DfE can control supply and demand.

greathat · 28/08/2016 18:07

Ha gnome! I used to work there! The teachers work harder than anywhere else I've ever been. Including the outstanding school I work at now

TaIkinPeace · 28/08/2016 18:08

Presumably, if the pass rate drops as much as it is predicted
will utterly discredit the exam results with employers
they unlike many MN posters are not morons

the fact that
9x A was exceptional 30 years ago
15 x A* was unexceptional 5 years ago
10 x A* was exceptional this year

says nothing about the kids
it says everything about politicised exams
but
employers CBA to look at what year a kid did their exams to see if that is "good"
they will be like the Grammar School luddites on these threads and have a fixed letter in their head
which will be a nightmare when the have to remember if 1 or 9 is the good one

Gove has so many circles of hell to pass through, this atheist is still inventing them

GnomeDePlume · 28/08/2016 22:50

greathat I am going to be cynical. There have been and still are some outstandingly good teachers but there have also been some outstandingly bad ones.

I have written about the school repeatedly on this site. IMO it is a monumental failure of management which repeatedly allows good staff to struggle on unsupported and bad staff to carry on unchallenged.

BoneyBackJefferson · 28/08/2016 22:52

TaIkinPeace

I agree with you they will wait till the census and then get rid but keep the cash.

BlueGazebo · 29/08/2016 07:02

Entry Level qualifications for the exceptionally weak SEN kids are being stopped by schools because they won't feature in the league tables. This means that these kids will be forced to do GCSEs because even if they get the lowest grade it will still count on the league tables which is more important to schools than what is best for these kids. These are kids that struggle with basic taking away and times tables so rather than being in small classes learning the basics and then having the chance of achieving a pass in something below GCSE level, they being forced to do trigonometry and are being set up to fail.

PonderingProsecco · 29/08/2016 07:11

It is sad if functional skills being phased out.
They can start at very basic Entry levels, 1,2 and three. Then Level 1 and level 2 [talking English and maths].
At least they are a positive achievement whereas the lowest gcse grade may not seem like that.
I did level 2 maths as an adult. It was great and I felt it worthwhile [City and Guilds].

greathat · 29/08/2016 09:32

Gnome, it's issue has always been that the management deny there are any problems. As there are no problems the teachers can't ask for help. If they do they are judged to be personally failing. The last ofsted I was there for I was one of the few to get an outstanding lesson obs, mainly due to the class I had (a bottom set who were actually lovely) others were told behaviour in their class stopped kids making progress. We were still told there was no behaviour problems the next day by the management. Every member of staff is having to work alone. It doesn't work. They feel isolated and that's why we leave! Now from my understanding it's mainly staffed by supply teachers.

greathat · 29/08/2016 09:34

I'm teaching an entry level class this year. They are going to have to do the GCSEs too. We know they prob won't get anything, especially as it's getting a lot harder. We are going to focus on the entry level so as not to completely depress them

noblegiraffe · 29/08/2016 09:41

Our bottom set will be doing entry level qualifications as well as GCSE. They certainly won't be forced to learn trigonometry.

chuntersalot · 29/08/2016 11:10

My kids state secondary is proudly claiming to be in the 'top ten of non selective schools in the County'.

So this school is number 10 in the league table, great eh? Except that after stripping out selective schools, special schools and those where 'No data available or applicable for this school or college' there are only 36 schools left to compare against!

Other points to note:

  • this is just for KS4 performance
  • just for 5 A* - C 's including Maths and English (school number 11 was 1% less)
  • making expected progress in Maths for example it is at number 16.
Original poster
3amEternal · 29/08/2016 15:16

It's all about the spin. I looked at our local highest performing comp. it's always in the papers for being one of the highest achieving for GCSE results nationally for the cohort (>30% FSM). It's impressive until you see how many take unserious GCSE options: photography, PE, food tech, media, psychology, health and social care, music tech, business studies.

OP posts:
BoneyBackJefferson · 29/08/2016 15:52

3amEternal

I don't know about the others but I can tell you that food tech and P.E are serious GCSEs, involving more than just cooking, and just kicking a ball.

Original poster
3amEternal · 29/08/2016 15:56

I'm sure they are rigorous but you don't often see them as standard at academic schools.

OP posts:
BoneyBackJefferson · 29/08/2016 16:00

that would be because they are not in the EBAC, or counted very high in the progress 8.

PonderingProsecco · 29/08/2016 16:03

There is nothing wrong with a gcse/ betech in PE, photography and the like to balance out more academic subjects.
Rounded education and all that....

GnomeDePlume · 29/08/2016 17:05

greathat turnover at the top is certainly not helping. Another change of Head this year. We have been associated with the school for 9 years so far. In that time there has been roughly a change of Head each year. Some years we havent had a Head at all.

In the context of this thread the league tables and other associated information are very revealing. If you read only what the school says about itself then you would get a very different and misleading picture of the school.

greathat · 29/08/2016 17:30

It's weird to think I may have taught your kids :) I still have friends there and they have high hopes for this new head. Apparently he's saying all the right things to them. It's a shame coz at one point I felt like it was really on the up but then a few years ago it seemed to be going downhill fast. That and their refusal to allow any staff to be part time led to me scarpering after a pretty long stint there

ParkingLottie · 30/08/2016 08:05

The changes to the data provided on the Dept of Ed website make it far harder to drill down into the contextual information about each school. The graphs make the 'headlines ' easier to see at a glance but it is the headlines behind which much league table engineering is concealed.

A retrograde step by the DoEd, IMO.

BertrandRussell · 30/08/2016 08:07

I agree.

BertrandRussell · 30/08/2016 08:10

"I'm sure they are rigorous but you don't often see them as standard at academic schools."

Really? If by academic you mean "grammar", all the grammar schools I know offer PE, at least one of the Tec subjects and Art at GCSE.