Monday 29 January 2018

Government League Tables - a note of caution. Dr Stephen Wilkinson - Director of Studies

Canford is very proud of the exam results that its pupils produce, through very hard work and determination on their part.  Whilst league tables take many forms, and are often very variable in terms of the criteria used in their compilation, we are always placed highly in relation to schools of a similar type and intake in those published in the Times and the Telegraph after the results come out in August.

The Government league tables, comparing all schools across the country, are based on different criteria, which do not take into account the academic curriculum we teach. The new 'Progress 8' measure introduced by the Government to ensure that schools don't just 'top up' their results with non-academic options such as Media Studies or Tourism and Leisure, also precludes the inclusion of IGCSE results. These more academic specifications are available to independent schools, and used by Canford in around half of the GCSEs taken by our pupils.

As a consequence, the results that our pupils gain in Maths (which is double-weighted in Progress 8), French, German, Spanish, History, Chemistry, Business, and Computing are all disregarded from the calculation of how well our pupils have fared at GCSE.   Read with caution!