Calling all education data nerds! Can anyone help me make sense of these slightly weird OFQUAL stats? (Comparing high grade GCSEs in grammar and private schools)

[clarexbp]

What do you make of these charts?

analytics.ofqual.gov.uk/apps/GCSE/CentreType/

They report % of kids scoring 7/A or above in GCSE in each of the main subjects, according to type of school attended.

Grammar schools (I'm presuming that's what they mean by 'Secondary Selective') and independent schools are neck and neck for most subjects (e.g. Biology, Chemistry, Classics, Computing, DT, Drama MFL, RS, to name a few). Curiously, however, for some subjects, there is a massive disparity, with grammar schools doing much better than independent schools.

E.g. in 2019:
Business Studies 30% v 49% getting A/7 or higher
English 31% v 48%
English Lit 38% v 54%
History 48% v 60%
Maths 31% v 65% (Wow!)

This looks like it's a consistent year-on-year pattern, not just an occasional anomaly.

Any ideas?

Is it because independent schools often sit IGCSEs? I don’t know whether it is the case, but maybe the higher performing independents are more likely to sit IGCSE rather than GCSE.

I agree that iGCSEs are a factor. Some high achieving schools in my area perform poorly in subjects such as English and Maths because pupils take iGCSE rather than GCSE. iGCSEs aren't regulated by OFQUAL so won't be included.
Some independent schools may not have Business studies on the curriculum at GCSE.

My daughter went to an independent school that was selective only on talent in the arts, not other academic subjects. There are several such schools and some independent schools are not academically selective at all.

The first group of subjects are subjects commonly offered by and taken by academically able students. Business Studies for example may not be offered by many selective independent schools (it was a popular subject at dd's non academically selective school but not offered by the school ds attended for a short time.

I did wonder about IGCSE but why would that not impact all subjects? Or do higher performing private schools do IGCSE for maths and english and GCSE for the other subjects?

Independent schools often pick and choose which subjects they do as IGCSE and which as GCSE.

Both my DCs went to private schools. They both did IGCSE for maths, Eng lit and sciences. Other subjects were a mix of IGCSE and other boards.

Not all private schools are selective and there's more of them so I wouldn't expect them to beat grammars tbh. If it was selective private vs selective state then I'd expect to see similar grades in all subjects offered in both. (Idk if grammars have lessons in Latin or offer the same number of MFL choices as in a private selective)

Dome private schools do a mix and match of IGCSE and GCSE. So they might do iGCSE maths and GCSE French

I think in history grammars do better than independents?

Grammar schools just tend to take cleverer children with more demanding parents.

Most independent schools do well because they are a) selective and/or b) the families really value education so push their kids. With independent schools you are actually paying for the environment rather than any actual tutoring in many cases.

@KindergartenKop why are grammar school parents "more demanding" but independent school parents "really value education so push their kids". What's the difference between the two, apart from one set being presented by you in a much more positive light than the other? Do you really believe parents are just paying for environment rather than quality of teaching in independent schools?

Why do some private schools choose IGCSEs over GCSEs, out of interest?

I'd say it's the grammar school parents who truly place a value on education and the private schools ones who are demanding and pushy.

The private school that ds attended for a short time said that it felt that IGCSE were better preparation for A level. When the new 9-1 GCSE's came in they had a year or two of seeing how they went then I believe they swopped back for some subjects.

I am on a forum for drama teacher and know IGCSE is popular for that subject as marking criteria etc are more transparent.

Thanks @Comefromaway.

I don't think it's got much to do with IGCSE's, I'm pretty sure that all the stats show e.g. the percentage of candidates in subject X who get top grades in subject X rather than the percentage of all pupils in year 11 who got top grades in subject X. You can see this in the results for relatively obscure subjects, e.g. there's no way that 72% of all grammar pupils are getting a top grade in "classical subjects".

If the difference was just in maths and maybe a couple of other STEM subjects my first instinct would be to put the difference down to grammars being increasingly dominated by the kids of Indian families who take STEM way more seriously than other stuff and who in terms of written English maybe don't always have perfect fluency. But English is one of the other big outliers. I guess maybe maybe when it comes to the science subjects there's a different culture in terms of selecting which students sit triple/combined etc science.

Overall I suppose it comes down to the difference in budget per head [roughly double on average at private schools, though plenty of the extra goes on non-academic stuff] vs the amount of selection [the average private school is barely selective at all, and in the few grammar areas may even be negatively selective, in terms of only pulling in kids who both failed the state 11+ and whose parents were up for paying fees], it looks like the two often balance each other out but in a few subjects selection is more important than teaching budget. The very highest performing schools, as the league tables etc show us, tend to be the ones which both are very selective and have exceptional budgets.

@TurquoiseSeaglass I mean the same thing. They both demand more because there's a lot at stake and they have chosen something either difficult to get into or expensive.

I think the quality of the education is impacted more by the background/drive of the kids than anything else. Grammar and independent schools get good results because the kids want to work hard and learn AND this makes teaching easier so the tuition is automatically better. Add in selecting the brightest kids and you've got a perfect recipe for good results!

Do you really believe parents are just paying for environment rather than quality of teaching in independent schools?

Yes, absolutely. I can't speak for secondary schools that much but, at a primary level, yes. I've worked with both private and state schools and, whilst there is a mix of quality in both, the weaker teachers I've seen are definitely in private. You're paying for the class sizes, better access, improved facilities and potential connections for future education/work.

I think you have misunderstood others’ posts, no one has said it shows the % of all students in Y11 (not that GCSEs are only taken by Y11 pupils). If the higher performing independent schools tend to sit IGCSEs, thus for those subjects aren’t included in the statistics, the independent school statistics are skewed towards the lower performing independent schools, therefore have lower results and aren’t comparable to selective state schools.

@LouisCatorze another reason is in some subjects IGCSEs don’t have NEA or it is optional whereas the GCSE does.

@Iamnotthe1 my point was more that parents believe they are getting both in the private sector. Whether they do actually get both is a different matter entirely though.

you're right, I didn't read the full post, you're saying that more selective private schools are disproportionately likely to sit IGCSE, that's probably right.

there might be some other clues from not looking just at the gap but at the absolutes, eg the private schools' maths score might not be so anomalously low as the grammars' maths score is anomalously high.

Really interesting points @puffyisgood. I agree that it's likely to be a somewhat complex explanation.

I wondered if it might be a little clue that, perhaps, kids in grammar schools are, on average, slightly more academically able...? The subjects that grammars are doing disproportionately well at are ones that a bright but not particularly industrious child might still score highly in. I speak from personal experience. I did no work for my GCSEs but got high marks in maths and english because I could largely wing them based on wits alone. My other subjects, which needed actual knowledge, were somewhat less spectacular...

Or, is it possible that grammar schools (beholden to the DfE's performance tables) really hammer English and Maths...? But that doesn't seem likely, as virtually all of their kids will get a 'pass' in those subjects without breaking a sweat.

(Also doesn't explain Biz Studies, but I think we can probably put that down to small numbers)

(Or History, but gap not so massive there).

I think the gap will also reflect the fact that ALL grammars are academically selective.
Not all private schools are as selective, and some are not academically selective at all.
This is a good illustration of why the endless state vs private threads on here can never result in a clear cut answer. Every school under consideration - whether state or private - needs to be compared against each other, as well as considering the needs of the individual child.

It will be the igcse effect. If a big chunk of the high performing privates don’t have gcse English results you only see the low performing ones - which definitely will be below grammar.

All the schools doing igcse will be getting a very high proportion of 7+ at English (think it’s close to 100% at dc’s school) but none of these are showing in the stats.

I wondered if it might be a little clue that, perhaps, kids in grammar schools are, on average, slightly more academically able...?

Well yes, grammar schools are, by definition, academically selective, whereas independent schools are not necessarily.

You can see the impact of this more easily if, instead of looking at the 7+ score, you look at the 4+ score.

For maths, which has to be taken by every pupil, grammar schools have, in 2019, 99% of their pupils getting a 4 or above in maths, as you would expect. In independent schools, this is 80.9%. If 1 in 5 independent pupils are failing maths, but only 1 in 100 grammar pupils, this suggests that grammar pupils are indeed more academically able as a cohort and would explain the much higher proportion of top grades.

I don't think it's about IGCSE because the data only includes centres which have entries in that subject group.

The number of centres is very small, however. This is not national data. I'm not sure how they have been selected so may not be representative.

There is also an issue that the type of centre is self-reported. Quite a few special schools are independent - would they have classified themselves as a special school, or an independent school? This could affect the data.