A-level results spark league table debate (From The Argus)

A-level results spark league table debate

8:20am Thursday 14th August 2008 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

A row over exam league tables has erupted today as thousands of teenagers prepare to collect what will be a record set of A-level results.

Schools and colleges from both the state and independent sector across Sussex have announced their pass rates have reached new high levels.

They will open their doors this morning to allow students to find out their A and AS-level scores and share the good news. The majority will discover they have the grades needed to get into their first choice university.

But some of the county’s leading schools have taken the opportunity to criticise exam league tables, accusing them of applying a one-size-fits-all formula and diverting attention from the achievement of individual pupils.

Independent school Eastbourne College has announced it will be following the lead of others, including St Paul’s in London and Eton, by refusing to submit its results for use in any league tables published in newspapers or elsewhere.

They have argued the tables once served a useful academic purpose but are now primarily used for marketing and were misleading.

Eastbourne College headteacher Simon Davies said: “League tables in principle were helpful when they first appeared in the 1990s but now people often draw the wrong inference when they look at them. We want people to look at the school as a whole, not just a headline figure.”

The college had previously figured highly in tables.

Several other independent schools in Sussex said they were also considering withholding their results, including Hurstpierpoint College, near Burgess Hill, Lancing College and Roedean in Brighton.

Brighton College headteacher Richard Cairns said he did not want to distract from his pupils’ achievement by revisiting the debate, but in April he argued the tables were important to provide parents with hard facts used to make their school choices.

A number of state sector sixth form colleges have also chosen not to give their results figures to national newspapers to use in their league tables, including both Varndean College and BHASVIC in Brighton and Hove.

Dr Phil Harland, principal of Varndean College in Brighton, said: “The focus should be on individual achievement, not the combined results of an establishment. They are often misleading as well. In many cases they are not comparing like with like.”

All schools have no choice but to submit their results data to the Government’s Department for Children, Schools and Families which publishes statistics in January.