School league tables
School league tables have been condemned as unreliable in their current form and almost impossible to interpret.
Urging parents not to be fooled by the figures released each year, Andy Grieve, the president of the Royal Statistical Society, said tables should acknowledge individual variations for a truer assessment.
Since their introduction in 1992, there has been debate over tests and school league tables as a measure of success.
Stakeholder Response: Institute of Education
"There needs to be a lot more transparency and honesty about the limitations."
Stakeholder Response: NASUWT
Chris Keates, acting general secretary of the NASUWT, said: "The publication of league tables is an annual ritual which serves no useful purpose.
"Although they demonstrate the year on year improvement schools are making, inevitably and regrettably the focus will be on the alleged failures in the system rather than the significant achievements of pupils and teachers.
"Value-added data is put together using a limited criteria that does not truly show the achievements of schools nor takes into account the variations between schools in terms of class sizes."
Stakeholder Response: Secondary Heads Association
Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: "Andy Brieve’s criticisms of the school and college league tables confirm SHA’s view, held ever since they were introduced.
"The league tables purport to give parents a way of determining which school (where there is a choice) they would wish their children to attend. However, they give only an illusion of such information – frequently misleading parents about the real strengths of schools.
"First, league tables only measure a limited number of easily measurable factors, mostly to do with exam results, and ignore the many other things that are so important about schools.
"Second, they mainly reflect the nature of the intake to the school, not the excellence of the teaching and learning that goes on there. Parents want to know 'which school will do best for my child?' The league tables do not answer that question, since the school with the 'best' examinations results may or may not be the one. This applies even to academically gifted children.
"Third, the tables are based in part on key stage tests that have not proved particularly robust.
"Fourth, even where the examinations themselves are well respected there are inevitably inaccuracies and variations from year to year that can be reflected in the league tables.
"Fifth, the league tables combine different examination types of results, and this may not be clear to their readers.
"Sixth, the tables can to some degree be manipulated by choice of the courses and subjects for which students are entered.
"Seventh, the particular form of the measure is often unhelpful and distorting to teaching and learning. For example the measure of what proportion of a year group gained five or more GCSEs at grade C or above only tells parents how well schools are at “converting” potential three and four grade C youngsters into five grade C youngsters. If one’s child is one of the group in question this is of importance, but for the great majority it is irrelevant.
"Finally, as Andy Brieve points out, any statistical analysis should be accompanied by confidence intervals that give the sophisticated reader an idea of how much of the observed variation may be due to errors in the mechanism or random variation – this does not happen with these league tables."
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