Indie Schools: Value Added Ranking

[uk2020]

May I know if there are websites ranking the value added of indie schools? Thanks!

I don't think so.

For there is no standard recording of levels on entry

The only real yardstick measuring the true value added of any school - indie or otherwise - is the destination reached 10 years (or more) after the individual had left the school.

Schools should know their value added score- it's basically a pleasure of GCSE performance against ability tests on entry, or A level score against GCSE. If there are schools which you are considering you can ask the question

measure, not pleasure

For reasons I can justify I have long maintained that value added scores for Indies are crap. A teacher disagreed and explained on MN how scientific they are and linked to a huge document explaining how they are calculated, but unfortunately that huge amount of tracking and monitoring only applies to state school pupils where I suspect she taught. At the end of the huge document there is a tiny paragraph that says for indies the information is collected from the exam boards, i.e. this is whole cohort at GCSE and A level and it makes no allowances for schools that have huge losses or big intakes at 6th form. Similarly, there is no detailed information available for unis etc from indies because they can't get access to individual pupil information. only cohort.

If it is a school that maintains pretty much the same cohort to 18 then the value added score on the govt site should be a good indicator but for many schools it really isn't,

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=default&table=schools&region=all-england&for=primary

I thought the value added scores for state schools adjust of change in the cohort? Ie they measure progress for the same people at start and finish? At least for primary schools? Anybody can confirm?

And I agree with @Peteneras. For all the fame that schools like St Paul’s Girls have, you really don't see a lot of them later on in the professional work sectors - where do they go and what they do, in the main, not visible but you would expect them to pop up more often than they do. (Unlike Eton, and other schools too, you do see them around)

The only ‘official’ one is the value from GCSE to A level on the gov site mentioned above.
Indies use their own tests, etc, at Y7, but will have their own value add from then to GCSE. Some will advertise and some won’t and you would probably be comparing apples with pears.

Stilllookingfor - no you never see anything of St Paul’s Girls: Rosalind Franklin, Harriet Harman, Shirley Williams, Jennifer Saunders, Rachel Weiz...

Yes I will give you there are some indeed in the arts and showbiz and politics. But do you have to go back to the 1930s for some examples?

I agree with peteneras that you need to look beyond the end of secondary to evaluate a result, but believe that you should probably go 10 years beyond the end of their formal education, not just 10 years beyond the end of secondary.

However, I think that even a complete reckoning on that basis wouldn't give you value added because the effect of the secondary schools' selection process, both in admissions and survival, is too great.

Stilllookingfor Is Kate Bingham (leading the UK effort for a coronavirus vaccine) recent enough?
www.ft.com/content/f63f9e25-a291-4871-9d4b-2fcf93c4969e

It’s more that Paulinas with any sense don’t mention their school, unless asked directly.

On value add, the minority that enter Y7 from state primaries come in with perfect or nearly perfect SAT scores, so it would be very hard to measure progress in any sensible way.

@highropes and @mimbleandlittlemy if you are Paulinas maybe you can comment on your cohort and tell what people went on to do ten years after graduating? (@peteneras made a really good comment at looking beyond university destinations)

DS's independent gives a Progress 8 score on their website but I don't think it makes it on to any web league.

You don't send a child to an independent school just so that in ten years you can see if they have done better than they would have done at a state school. Or have achieved more than state school children have done!

It's about personal development, small classes, being seen as an individual, maybe for single sex education, sport, music, creative arts... Really impossible to measure!

Stilllooking, I am not a Paulina.

I’m not sure that value add can be based on what someone ends up doing 10 years after graduating. Success means different things to different people - it’s not about how many top flying lawyers, accountants, consultants, doctors, academics, entrepreneurs or influencers they create. It’s about whether people reach where they want to get to.

What about that person who just wants to work for a charity? Maybe working on a conservation project somewhere abroad? Many would see that as a “doss” job for the very privileged, but for that person it’s the peak of their career. How do you measure that? Or the person who “just” wants to be a midwife?

All schools should give students all the skills they need to achieve their ambition, be that confidence, leadership or team building skills, as well as academics.

Our independent DOES quote a value added measure, with students achieving on average, one to two GCSE grades higher than would be expected when they entered the school. It doesn’t appear on any kind of collated website though. I am guessing the OP is looking for a school that helps her child reach their potential by researching schools like this, and isn’t particularly interested in how many Paulinas go onto top jobs.

stilllookingfor I agree with PPs, I don’t measure a school on the glitteriness of the careers of its alumnae after ten years. Zodlebud got it exactly right, what I look for is helping pupils to develop the self-knowledge to know what will fulfill them, and the confidence and ability to make that happen. IME, SPGS does that (though I’m sure you’ll find those who disagree). I also agree that the OP really doesn’t care about Paulinas in top jobs...

"The only real yardstick measuring the true value added of any school - indie or otherwise - is the destination reached 10 years (or more) after the individual had left the school."
I agree with peteneras that you need to look beyond the end of secondary to evaluate a result, but believe that you should probably go 10 years beyond the end of their formal education, not just 10 years beyond the end of secondary."
What a truly unpleasant way of judging the value added of your chosen school in either sector. Surely happiness, resilience, emotional intelligence, the ability to form caring loving relationships, get on with your peers and colleagues etc although difficult to quantify are the most important attributes and marker of success. Obviously schools don't do this on their own but they play apart. Who sits and measure the destination reached 10 year after leaving school?

Short answer, no there are no metrics for this

there are no metrics for this

Well, quite. I'm puzzling over exactly how this could work for pupils awarded academic scholarships to intensely academically selective independent senior schools. What possible academic added value should there be? One hopes only that the pupil fulfils the potential they had on joining the school - and that they have been enabled to develop a rounded, empathetic, resilient character.

peterneras used the word "destination". I interpreted this as encompassing the totality of quality of life, including likely future prospects for happiness. And I continue to agree that the end of secondary is far too early to evaluate that.

To those of you who ass u me that a destination must equate to a career, and could not possibly include happiness, etc.: I think your assumption says more about you than me.

I disagree @expat96. My assumption of what I think is meant by "destination" is based on my knowledge of the poster and I don't think he is referring to happy souls sitting on a beach weaving baskets.

Maybe your right and maybe Im a bit anti jargon (as we have so much of it in my occupation). But I do slightly struggle with the idea that the term "destination reached" is being used to describe the desired outcomes for person 10 years after you left school as well rounded happy (most of the time) individual who has a high level of emotional intelligence, you're resilient, capable of forming loving relationships, get on with peers colleagues etc. For a start "value added" is not about this it's about exam results and academic improvement and secondly I would hope that you would see these qualities in a person well before 10 years after you left school

@happygardening it should be clear that I'm focusing on something other than academic accomplishments as I'm emphasizing a timeframe well after formal schooling finishes. Anyway, IME academic accomplishments are only weakly correlated with income. My observation is that career results depend far more on self-discipline, emotional intelligence, resilience and luck, than do academic results. But I've also noticed that luck tends to be positively correlated with resilience and discipline; the more times you try, the more chances you have to get lucky while the more prepared you are, the more you can take advantage if you do get lucky.

Right now the state mandates that we spend about 1/6 of our lives in formal education and an increasing number of people are spending up to 1/4 of their lives in formal education. But most of those years come before adulthood.

Focusing on our adult lives, I don't believe that judgments passed much before age 35 have much value. I've known plenty of people who reached their late 20s with all the outward manifestations of early success and end up divorced and working in soul-killing, albeit lucrative, jobs. Conversely, I've known plenty of people who struggled with relationships and various penal forms of training in their 20s who emerged in stable relationships after finding someone special, and who were able to do what they genuinely enjoyed. There's just too much noise in the transition between education and the bulk of our adult lives.

As for "value-added", the top academic schools generally admit children who had the discipline to learn what they were told to learn. They then shed some of the less resilient ones along the way. Others leave these relatively high-pressured environments because they are less socially adaptable and, therefore, less happy. It should not be surprising that the survivors of this process are more disciplined, more resilient, and more socially adept than the average. How can you attribute how much of that is due to a school's teaching as opposed to the selection and survivorship biases?