Opinions
Poor marking
Richard Russell criticises league tables for their inability to recognise true quality
I have been particularly aware of the importance of league tables. Parents at our school noticed it when Colfe’s was misrepresented in the DCSF government league tables for GCSE results in 2008. The Evening Standard was first to report that only 56 per cent of Colfe’s pupils gained at least five A*-C grades at GCSE, although the actual figure was 100 per cent. To our further detriment, all the main papers followed suit the next day.
The confusion arose from the government’s failure to include the international (IGCSE) results. In common with many independent schools and universities, we prefer the IGCSE maths exam to its national equivalent for sound academic reasons: the syllabus contains more algebra and prepares pupils better for further study. Precisely 44 per cent of the Colfe’s cohort sat the IGCSE Maths exam last summer: hence the discrepancy.
Other independent schools fared worse. According to the government, only 1 per cent of pupils at Eton and Sevenoaks, both distinguished institutions, managed to gain five A*-Cs, including English and maths. Two other bastions of independent strength, Manchester Grammar and North London Collegiate, sank to zero. We can safely infer that all of their pupils, along with many others in the independent sector, were entered for IGCSE in either maths or English.
No independent school will have suffered lasting damage from this fiasco. We have become too adept at managing information for that. Indeed the debacle has been welcomed by high-profile opponents of league tables. Leading figures within HMC have frequently voiced their concern. The summer of 2008 saw a significant proportion of schools refusing to release results to the media. One head has described the tables as “a cancer on the face of education” and it is asserted more widely that a results culture has damaged education.
League tables fail us
We are told that inspiring teachers have become professionally inhibited in the race for top grades and that the weak and the lazy are being discreetly withdrawn from examinations to avert reputational damage. It is further claimed that students are being insidiously guided away from “hard” subjects to maximise success at the expense of the economy: less maths, less physics and, in consequence, fewer engineers.
The most poisonous effect of league tables, however, is to be found in state secondary schools, which are now judged exclusively on the proportion of their pupils achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE, with the spectre of special measures hovering above those that fall close to the line. No state school is immune from this pressure and the inevitable casualties are the most intelligent pupils for whom five C grades represents a pitifully low level of achievement. While dedicated teachers devote their energy to the labour of converting D grades into Cs, the interests of the top 20 per cent of pupils, who should be coached towards A and A* grades, are ignored and excellence is outlawed.
We should not be surprised that bright pupils tend not to complain when so little is asked of them: most intelligent 16-year-olds can think of more interesting things to do than aim for A*s, a fact that is tragically reflected in other league tables, most notably those compiled by the Home Office in relation to youth crime.
Richard Russell is the headteacher of Colfe’s School.
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