The Real School League Tables

[Xenia]

Only using subjects Cambridge accepts (top 1000 are ranked in all sectors). I like the fact they give earlier rankings too so you get to see the history rather than just a blip year.

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/53840c30-327e-11df-bf20-00144feabdc0.html

"The FT?s school league tables focus unashamedly on academic achievement defined by ?core? subject A-level results, as set out by Cambridge University in 2006. Subjects such as drama and media studies are not included in our analysis.

By contrast, the government?s summary scores for schools at GCE/VCE, A-level and AS-levels this year (for 2009 exam results) again included various other qualifications in subjects such as animal care, and make-up, which we feel give little help to students and parents aiming for places at top universities.
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Apologies to readers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but the devolved assemblies (education is devolved) have decided that school performance data is not a public good and have made school level data nigh-on impossible to access. Sadly we cannot include their schools.
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Like the government?s, our analysis uses the QCA points system, as follows: grade A A-levels = 270 points, grade B = 240 points, C = 210 points, D = 180 points and E = 150

Really interesting, Xenia, thank you for that.

What on earth is interesting. If these tables included the A levels it excludes the order in the table would be identical.

That's not the case for some of the schools I'm looking at: very far from it!

sorry for hijack - Xenia, do you fancy popping over to this thread?

Xenia - thanks for posting this link. Took me several tries to get on, eventaully I had to register, but I thought the table was very interesting.

Ah, yes I think I am already registered (free) to use the FT web site hence got on it automatically. They've produced their survey since my youngest was about 5 (20 years ago and I found it useful then) before many other league tables came out. The exclusion of A levels which don't count at good universities and the long term rankings helps makes it clearer. Interesting that a state comprehensive (Watford Grammar - not a grammar by the way despite its name) is I think the best state school, not a grammar if I remember that right.

Ah it wouldn't let me get at it now - may be it's free on the day the paper comes out but not after. Then I could get into it via google though on a google searh of ft schools interactive map www.ft.com/cms/s/0/53840c30-327e-11df-bf20-00144feabdc0.html

Ah, no I'm wrong. There is one state grammar school in the top 20.

Interesting that a few of the private secondary schools we are thinking of for DSs do move around quite a bit between league tables depending on the methodology used.

DW and me think that all league tables are pretty flawed and real care is needed in interpreting them. What we do take a lot of notice of is how many DCs a school gets into Oxford or Cambridge. It is not so much the absolute number but taking account of the number of scholarships they hand out and what kind of area they are in what success rate they would expect them to have.

Success at getting into Oxford and Cambridge is very hard to fake or manipulate unlike A level results where DCs are told to enter for the exams privately who may not do so well or only entered for easy subjects.

One very high league table school we know is quite mercenary about mainpulating its league table positions but is not as successfulat getting DCs into Oxford and Cambridge as its A level resultd suggest it should be. To get the Oxford and Cambridge results we just ask schools to send a summary of the last 5 years or dig it out of their websites.

The FT league tables get pretty close to how me and DW think private school academic standards can be judged. To be honest,so many DCs get A and A* at A/AS level now that the top schools can only be judged by looking at how many are doing traditional hard subjects and how many are succeeding in getting into Oxford and Cambridge.

It is ony one factor we look at though and we deliberately avoided sending our DSs to a very academic school even though they passed the exam.

Which is the state grammar, Xenia, please?

F, state ones are Colchester 7th in country, QE (22), Kendrick (28), Reading 32) and Henrietta B 33. All the others in the top 33 are fee paying.

I agree about Oxbridge too (38 from my daughter's old school - NLCS which is 4th in the country and does IB or A level - the girls decide).

Interesting. Thanks, Xenia.

That's so true. I remember once being at a party with a mad woman who kept on and on about her daughter's school only being seventh-best in London whereas her friend's was second-best, and was she doing the right thing? etc, etc.

Most children follow the herd. If the herd at the comp leave school at 16 with abotu 34% A - C at GCSE like my local school here (up from 22% the year before or something!) most children will follow that herd. If mot of the herd like at say North London C go to good universities your child probably will. It;'s hard to be different as a teenager. Peer group can be all.

amicissima - what you said about "...others can be discouraged into giving up by not being at the top of a class, even though they may be in the top, say 5%, nationally" is very true.

It is the reason we chose a somewhat less acaemic school because DS2 is able but gets turned off if he cannot win or be top of the class. DS1 is very academic and self motivated but we wanted a school that motivated both.

"What the tables don't tell you, of course, is how well your DC will do at any particular school."

AmicIssima - so true! Parents need to use league tables with care and with reference to their own child.

Really interesting as our local boys (ex Grammar) school scores more highly than I would have expected, and much higher than a local, much feted, Comp.

It's commonly agreed on here that the London 'super- selective' grammar schools are harder to get into than most of the London private schools - yet, according to these league tables, the selective independent schools have done so much better than the grammar schools. What is going on?

Kendrick & Reading are my 2 local Grammars!

DD's comprehensive is featured low down the ranks there, but I am really interested that they are now publishing stats for percentage of children getting 10 A*-C grades. They say that most kids now sit 10 subjects, and so the usual 5 can be distorted by unusual/less regarded GCSE's.

Anyone else's school do that?

jackstarbright - interstingly thats not the case with the handful of schools I am thinking about for my dcs - the expensive boarding option is way down the list, the indie days are midtable and the grammars at the top...as I would expect really.

Jackstarbright, I've wondered that about the grammars and private schools myself. A couple of possibilities:

1. some of the grammars are somehow not using as sensitive selection criteria (eg no interview, in some cases no creative writing or comprehension)
2. the teaching is actually not all that good in some of the grammars and the children just do well because they're all very bright
3. children equally bright, teaching equally good, but(relative)lack of money, large class sizes, poorer facilities mean results aren't as good.

Though A-level results are certainly not the be-all and end-all and these tables are accentuating tiny differences between schools that are all demonstrating excellent results.

Singersgirl - all good points. Yes, the real differences in raw scores (rather than positions on the table) are small.

Abetadad - re your oxbridge places being the real measurement - school at top of FT table got 90 boys/girls into oxbridge this year out of about 185 pupils. They are also strict about doing 4 A levels and that looks like what keeps them at the top of the table.

lazymum - yes it does tend to correlate quiet highly at the top of the league table but there again most of the really top schools hand out a lot of scholarships and also have very aggressive selection procedures so they are bound to come out top.

It is also true that differences at the top of these league tables are tiny - hence it is important to look at other factors as well. A good school with only a small scholarship endowment fund and a relatively light selection policy will always have a relatively lower ranking but could be doing just as well in the classrom for any given child as a Top 5 school in London.

In general, what me and DW say is that if a school is in the top 250 and it has a good smattering of Oxbridge entries every year but not very selective and not 'buying in' a lot of top students with scholarships then it is probably doing a good job in the classroom. Finding one of those schools but with decent facilities and a good ethos either in state or private and any child will have a good education.

The difference between a school ranked Top 5, Top 50 or Top 250 is very small and it will not make along run difference to a DCs life.