Feel a bit cheated by how school portrayed GCSE results.

[Resultsday]

On the website they publish GCSE results. Not great but standard for our area. I think it was about 73% English and 57% Maths plus 100% in two subjects.

The school attracts pupils in year 9 and 10 so this is relevant I believe.

I've just seen the league tables and feel they have been a bit sneaky to be honest.

17% got 5 GCSEs 5-9 Inc Maths and English.
Something like 33% got 5 GCSES 4-9 Inc Maths and English and 44% got both Maths and English.

Their GCSE results have dropped by over 20% in some areas and yet they went on about how well they had done.

Feel a bit cheated!

Well those results don't tally at all. Were they old ones on the school website? or was the school reporting something different to what you expected?

Ultimately every school tries to portray its results in a good light so you do need to read between the lines and make sure you are comparing eggs with eggs. Provisional results were available on the d of e website prior to admissions having to be in so it's not like you've suddenly got info that wasnt available before. Unless provisional and actual are really that different? Ultimately it's still the school you liked;stats don't change that.

You're not the only one! My DS school was all over the press saying how well they'd done - although they didn't publish their results. Now the league tables have come out it turns out that only 28% got a level 5 or above in English and Maths compared to 44% in the LA and 40.4% nationally. My DS was lucky to do as well as he did. If I could call them out on it I would, it's disgraceful. Thank God I sent my DD to a different school.

You’re not the only one!
Dc’s headteacher seemed pleased as punch with GCSE results, no idea what he is looking at as what I can see is decidedly unimpressive.

I think you're being a bit unfair on the school TBH, as it's their job to put whatever positive "spin" they can on their results. As long as they're not outright lying, then it's business as usual. (Emphasis on the business, most of them being academies...) I used to work at a school like this and they did it so the local press wouldn't bash them (again).

Is it a private school - just wondering as you say they take pupils in Y9 & 10?
If so the discrepancy could be that the school takes some iGCSEs, which don't count in the government league tables.

One of our local secondary schools told us at an open day that they had 100% pass rate in maths and English GCSEs. The league table results say that 88% of their students got grade 5 or above. Very good but not 100%, or does a 4 count as a pass for the child but not the league tables?

4 does count as a pass.

Lets be blunt 1 counts as a pass of sorts, which is why they can say 100% pass rate.

4 is a standard pass.

Schools are always going to present their stats in the most positive way for them. That’s common sense and not a crime.

I was worried about this too with our top choice state school, and when I phoned the school to ask about it I was told that 80% of the children take their humanities & language subject early and the league tables don’t reflect this. This information also skews the progress 8 scores.
Might be worth checking with the school to get the context of the data being recorded in these tables?

Are you looking at results against cohort? They are meaningless otherwise.

Cohort effects are a big problem. Not just the quality of the intake but also how big it is. Smaller years have higher volatility and changes can be just noise. Schools often use a different cherry picked statistic every year as well. Then there are those that claim they are most improved which could just mean they are ok vs rubbish before. Or in the case of the GCSEs including both English and Maths an alleged improvement could be the result of one year the kids being weak in E&M being different and the next year they are the same. Then there was a school that claimed 100% A* to B in A level Latin when one kid took it and got a B. Too many schools cross the line from from presenting themselves in a good light to blatant statistical charlatanism. Every year in the Oxford Times there is a results day blog which is a rolling stream of quotes from heads spinning the results with a different bit of data or if things are really bad telling stories about individuals. It is like the annual snake oil sales convention.

It sounds like that for some children the school concentrates on getting them through their maths and English exams but the children don't always get 3 other passes. This happened with a few children at dd's school. They had a big influx into Year 10 and some of those children were academically behind (though it was counter balanced by some exceptionally bright children in that cohort)

Is it a UTC?
They take in from Y9 and many struggle to recruit. Also often have a cohort of Y12 and Y13 doing resits of failed GCSE English and Maths.

Very wrong to publish incorrect figures on their website though accurate figures are available for comparison on Gov website.

WhyamIpayingfees that reminds me of the Cold War story of a 2 person race between an American and a Russian. The Pravda reported that the Russian had achieved an admirable second place whereas the American came only second to last!