Parent power 2023

[ChiefButler]

I'm looking for times secondary school league tables as we are looking to move house. Would like to read on paper rather than digital. If memory serves it is December - anyone knows if it has already been published or when?

@AnonForThisPost I have no problem with knowing a schools results. I have a child attending a very academically selective school and she needs a school with a cohort that is high achieving and schools should have their results available and be accountable.

My issue is this very crude ranking process which doesn’t really tell anyone anything useful in addition to what the individual school results do already. It doesn’t even take progress data into account much less nuance the data based on factors such as if there isn’t automatic entry into the sixth form, if they cull students who aren’t keeping up or have SEN issues etc.

Parents and by proxy head teachers become obsessed with the wrong thing and start to see children in their care who are in need of support as ‘league table liabilities’. It’s toxic and it’s rife in the state and private sector.

I say this as a parent of a very academic child who is doing well in a top private school. But the entire system transforms the nature of the relationship between schools and pupils in education that I (and educators agree) is totally appalling.

Having a crude ranking (vs individual school performance which has been available for some time via the DfE along with other relevant data) have any influence on school choice becomes only about competitive elitism.

I've just bought the Sunday Times, and agree with earlier posters that the paper-based rankings are completely useless. A*-B is of no help whatsoever in distinguishing one school from another (which is why there are so few % points between any of the schools). B grades at A Level tell you nothing!

I don't have a Times subscription, but if anyone does, and can post a screenshot of the indie school rankings according to A or A-A, that would be much appreciated.

But yes, overall I agree with @LondonGirl83 that the rankings are crude. I'd much rather see value-added rankings (from assessments in Year 7 to Year 11 and then Year 13). But even then, it's still primarily the culture of the school that matters...

yeah, these rankings are meaningless crap for the reasons already covered: (1) what parents really want to know is how likely a child of a given starting attainment level is to do well, league tables which correlate almost perfectly with starting attainment tell us nothing; and (less importantly) (2) an A* grade and a B grades are light years apart.

re your request I don't think you can redo the tables like that, you have to drill down on an individual school to see anything other than A* -B

I’ve had a look at the paper copy this morning.

I think it’s pretty helpful to be honest, for me anyway. The schools in the north east are apparently so crap that they can’t even pull together a list of 20, as for most of the other regions. I would agree, the only secondary school my son could get into (based on feeder school) was in special measures the year before.

I wonder what proportion of children from this region make it to university? Any clever people know how I can access that information?

@LondonMum20222 see attached, sorted by A star

@puffyisgood if you click on the arrow at the top of each column, the table is sorted by that column.

It doesn’t work on a phone, but you can do it on a laptop

Even looking for a secondary schools academic records, I won't bother to look at A level scores at all. Because we would not start considering my DCs sixth form in 4 years time. By then if we do, probably consider together with other state or private sixth form college.

Thank-you for checking - it's much appreciated.

This is awesome - thank-you so much for taking the time to screenshot and upload them. That's really kind of you - I really appreciate it.

It's interesting that so many people are saying A Level results are less important than GCSE. Do you get pretty much the same rankings if you filter for Grade 9s at GCSE?

I think the ranking will be different www.londonpreprep.com/2022/08/gcse-results-day-2022-top-london-schools/

Note that between top 20% the percentage difference is about 5%?

That translate to 5-10 pupils in the year cohort? What does that entails? Some pupil may have a bad day? Some pupil may really want to take a particular subject but it is not really for him/her?
Some school more embrace SEN pupils than others? Some school takes pupils that naturally gifted at maths but struggle with English while other school is less tolerance about it?

Just looked at this properly. It's fascinating. Much more interesting than the results in print. As I've said further up, getting a B grade in a selective indie is no real measure, so the A* and A grades are much more revealing.

For instance, you suddenly see that FHSS only got 40% of A (and 75% at A) which wouldn't have put it in the top 30 overall. And some of the other schools did much better at A than their overall rankings would suggest.

Sorry, screen shot previously was just the normal table. Now by A star:

Yes, that's why I've historically been less interested in GCSE results - the handful of very bright pupils who aren't good at one particular subject can skew things. But I'm intrigued as to whether those absolute top tier schools nonetheless manage to get stellar GCSE results too.

If a school isn't in the tables is it because they choose not to be?

I would say it is selection bias, those absolute top tier school is prefiltered by academic ability at 11+ so hard to get in the first place

Thank-you! Both iterations are interesting, tbh!

ah ok ok. looks like someone else has fixed it...

I think so, Harrow chooses not to, I suspect because their results don’t come in the top 50. You could ask the school for their results and figure out roughly where the school would fit.

Anybody ever go to Cardiff Sixth Form? Do they have many domestic students?

Thank you @Wlondonmum2022. It's not independent and wouldn't likely be in the top one hundred even but other schools would seem to be okay with being seen at number 300.

I think these tables are hard to figure out, DS grammar school hasn't 'made it' whereas all the other nearby grammars are there. The results are all around the same mark (when comparing the schools using GCSE results from previous years), so I don't know whether the table should be taken with a pinch of salt, or whether DS school has had momentous fall in GCSE and a level results.

I don't have access to the online portal, so can't check whether the school has dropped due to 'bad' results.

@LondonGirl83 has raised some excellent points. I am new to this entire meta verse of 11+ and london school rankings. But my limited understanding tells me that when judging a school purely based on academic results, GCSE rankings are a better indicator. 1) GCSE offers a broader range of subjects and showcases how a school helped a student inclined towards maths do well in History also. 2) Many high performers shift schools at A levels.

@Workhar you also need to judge by how competitive the entry for the school in the first place.