Here Are The Results.....

St Fred’s Primary 1, Burts Community Primary 2
Brodwell Athletic Junior 3, Hamilton Academical Primary 5
Manchester United Junior & Infants 3, Chelsea Junior College 3


Did you read any of the school league tables yesterday? You could hardly avoid them!
The Yorkshire Post devoted three whole pages to the results, and I am sure they were not the only paper with that amount of coverage!

It is a sad indictment that the educational establishment is reduced to publishing something as meaningless and trivial as league tables. I thought league tables were only for footballers! Are our schools being measured in the same terms?

If you take a careful look at what is published it merely tells you that so many percent have achieved the required standard in English, Maths and Science, but what it doesn’t tell you are how those children have improved during their time in the particular school. This, surely, is the true measure which tells how well a school is performing.

When looking at these results, and also comparing those to previous years it is important to remember that from one year to another the overall abilities of the children can vary by a fairly significant amount. It would be simplistic to assume that because the percentage number has fallen from last year that the school is performing less well.

In an article in this morning’s Yorkshire Post Jayne Dowle puts forward a very well reasoned argument that the best way of judging a school is from the opinions of other parents, and even more accurately, from the number of people wanting to move into the school catchment area.

So if you really want to know how a school is performing, then there is no better means of discovery than consulting the local estate agents!