More schools failing in latest league tables

Big report on the BBC just now about the latest school league tables

"The number of state secondaries in England said to be underperforming has more than doubled amid exam changes.

Some 330 schools failed to get 40% of pupils gaining five good GCSEs including English and maths, and making the expected progress."

But a lot of people are saying these tables are meaningless. And since the way they are constructed means the likes of Harrow and Eton are coming bottom, it seems hard to disagree...

Big report on the BBC just now about the latest school league tables

"The number of state secondaries in England said to be underperforming has more than doubled amid exam changes.

Some 330 schools failed to get 40% of pupils gaining five good GCSEs including English and maths, and making the expected progress."

But a lot of people are saying these tables are meaningless. And since the way they are constructed means the likes of Harrow and Eton are coming bottom, it seems hard to disagree...

I believe that England and Wales need to bring back the 11plus and Grammar schools. Students of different academic abilities learn in different ways, and by looking at the statistics it is quite clear that comprehensive schools do not work.
In Northern Ireland, we have Grammar Schools and High Schools, with an entrance examination which dictates what schools you can apply to. It's quite obvious that the NI Grammar School system works, as NI students consistently do better at GCSE and A Level than those in England and Wales.
Without doubt, if Labour didn't create Comprehensive schools in the 1960s, the English Education system would be in a much better position than it is today. Students need to be separated into their academic abilities to ensure that they can achieve the best grades possible at GCSE and A Level.

England still has Grammar Schools and 11 plus

I'm not sure what exam reforms they mean considering GCSE and SAT reforms aren't implemented until 2015/16. Also, I've just read an article in The Spectator outlining the excellent progress made under the Coalition government's free schools and academies (which now make up two-thirds of state secondaries) programmes.

Whatever happened to the government's promise, education, education, education.

Big report on the BBC just now about the latest school league tables

"The number of state secondaries in England said to be underperforming has more than doubled amid exam changes.

Some 330 schools failed to get 40% of pupils gaining five good GCSEs including English and maths, and making the expected progress."

But a lot of people are saying these tables are meaningless. And since the way they are constructed means the likes of Harrow and Eton are coming bottom, it seems hard to disagree...

Whatever happened to the government's promise, education, education, education.

You have to be joking, right? They changed my English GCSE halfway through the course so our speaking and listening, which we'd wasted several weeks of class time on, didn't count any more. They completely scrapped modular GCSE exams and made it so that the first attempt at an exam was the only one that counted towards league tables, which wouldn't have been a huge issue except it again happened halfway through the course so no one had planned on it happening. It was chaos.

Academies and free schools are a ludicrous overcomplication to add to a system that ultimately would have worked if it was given adequate funding (to allow better teacherupil ratios, etc). Everyone I know who goes to an academy has seen no significant change in their education - they just wear a different uniform - while their teachers are no longer necessarily entitled to the same quality of pay and conditions as their counterparts who do the same job in a comprehensive. Don't delude yourself into thinking that the academisation process is happening to 'raise standards' in education; it is there purely to strip teachers of their rights to fair pay/conditions. It's forcing teachers out of the profession, and how is anyone going to get a decent education if there is no one left who is qualified to give it to them?

Under the last government funding per pupil doubled, and outcomes worsened. Academies were intended to answer the fact that there were far too many schools which had been failing generations of children, and too many councils which just watched it happen. The reforms were intended to give parents, who can probably be trusted to care about their education of their children as much as any LEA, a more significant say in the system.

Giving academies more freedom over staff was explicitly intended to force some teachers out the profession: the bad ones. I think anyone who has ever set foot in a state school knows that there are some pretty hopeless teachers out there. It's pretty much impossible to lose a teaching job and remuneration is based on length of service, rather than quality of teaching. Performance related pay, et cetera, give schools the power to attract good teachers into the profession, at the expense of rewarding bad ones, whether they hold a scrap of paper saying they are qualified or not. If they think that is stripping them of their right to 'fair' pay and conditions, then that just shows the entitlement which pervades that profession.

Well clearly you went to a batter school than I, well done. For the record, I'm not hating on teachers. My mum, sister and quite a few of my friends are teachers. It's a career I would definitely consider, if I weren't in my current job. Just, some of them are a bit pants, and teachers I know accept this.

I mean, if all teachers were wonderful, we probably wouldn't have schools where the significant majority of students fail to get 5 decent GCSEs. I know background is tremendously important, but many in disadvantaged areas do manage. The sort of problem academies were set up to address.



They are free to do so. But if they value their reputations, the quality of their teaching and their attractiveness to parents, then they will not use that freedom to simply keep the wage bill down.

And I mean, no one is stopping an academy headteacher paying an experienced teacher more, in view of the benefit they bring to the school. And indeed, they do. It simply gives the freedom to schools to reward the most effective teachers.



You realise performance-related pay is not simply related to pass rates? Although if grades did go up I think there would be some benefit to someone's education. But heads have discretion over the remuneration of their staff, they don't have to base it on exam results alone, and indeed that is not advised.

As for bullying, you realise most (i.e. almost all) jobs have pay which is not simply determined by length of service? That sort of bullying is illegal, but I don't see why teachers especially need to be protected.



Yea, I feel this is a straw-man, for the reasons above.



I realise this, but even within similar areas there is a wide range of achievement. The point of academies and free schools is that no parent should have to settle for a sink school. This is why so many have been set up in relatively disadvantaged areas, and standards in schools have risen over the course of this parliament.



I don't believe their rights to fair conditions and pay are being eroded anyway. It's mostly union guff, with nakedly political ends. For many pay is likely to go up. If a poorer teacher decides their pay isn't going up quickly enough, and seeks a different career, I can live with that.