When exam league tables were introduced by the Conservatives in the early 1990s, they promised to shine a light on every school in the country.

Those early tables have since been modified and upgraded, offering parents even more statistics about how their children's schools are performing.

But what seemed like a good idea at the time has had its fair share of criticism. Firstly, there are the parents who say they are not entirely sure how knowing a school's "contextual value added" (CVA) score helps them.

And then there are the head teachers. Even those sitting at the top of the tables often complain the information is irrelevant and possibly even misleading.

Earlier this week, heads from two of the country's leading private schools called on others to withhold the information used to collate the tables.

They went as far as describing the "tyranny" of the tables which they claimed held down struggling schools and harmed children's education.

In their defence, the Government has said league tables, along with regular Ofsted inspections, have helped people understand what actually goes on behind school doors.

At John Smeaton Community College in Stanks, east Leeds, staff and students have felt what it's like to be at both ends of the league tables.

After years of bumping along the bottom of performance charts indicating how many pupils gained five or more good GCSEs grades, the school apparently hit its stride and became one of the most improving in the country.


"In some ways the league tables are grossly unfair and there has to be a way of making them fairer," said John Smeaton's head teacher, John Daulby.

"The tables are a mechanism to help parents, but they are not going to help if they don't give a true picture of how a school is performing.

"I think people understand that some students are more able than other students. Our job is to make sure that all students are suitably challenged. "Do league tables reflect that? I don't think they do."

According to performance tables, the school's darkest days came in 2005, when just 14 per cent of GCSE students gained five or more passes at grades A* to C.

The following year, results jumped to 36 per cent – the highest ever – and in 2007, to 52 per cent. Yet while the pupils had changed, it was the same head teacher in charge and largely the same staff.

Comparisons

"People will always compare one school with another, and there's nothing wrong with that," said Mr Daulby, who took over at the school six years ago.

"We also need to have an idea of where we are going on a national basis to see how we can keep improving.

"But in their current form, all league tables really tell us are how many students passed five GCSEs.

"The CVA is supposed to tell us how well children have progressed since they started school, but I don't think many people really understand those figures in the way they are presented."

At Roundhay School, GCSE exam pass rates have also jumped in recent years. About 44 per cent in 2001, they have hit the 70 per cent mark for the last three years.

The school's A-level exam scores are routinely among the best in the country.

But if you really want to know what a school is like, knock on the door, said Roundhay's head Neil Clephan

" One of the best ways to find out about a school is to go and take a look around.

"Parents need to ask themselves does it feel right? Is this where I want to send my child?

"Of course parents want to know about academic standards, but they also want to know that the school will be able to fulfil all the other facets of education.

"League tables are a very simplistic at one level and highly complex and confusing on another. It is only one indicator of how a school is doing.

" I think the most common way of finding out about a school is word of mouth."

Mr Clephan, who has on several occasions been asked by Education Leeds to help turn around struggling schools in the city, said league tables painted a very unfair picture of those near the bottom.

Talented

"League tables can give the impression that the only good teaching and learning is taking place in the highest performing schools," he said.

"I would suggest that some of the best teaching and learning is taking place in schools in some of the most challenging circumstances.

"Those schools will have really talented staff doing some wonderful work where pupils do well and are very happy but it's not always reflected by the tables."

Mr Clephan's views were echoed by Chris Edwards, chief executive of Education Leeds, which runs the city's school support services.

"League tables alone can never give parents a true picture of a school," he said.

"They simply cannot reflect all the brilliant work in our schools. Some of our most innovative, inclusive schools, are also those which face the biggest challenges.

"Despite transforming learning in their communities they do not always appear at the top of league tables.

"If parents and carers want to understand their local school they should take every opportunity to visit open days, see the teaching and learning in action and talk to some of the wonderful, talented people who could help their child to achieve his or her potential."


'Government's lies maintaining the tyranny of harmful school league tables'


LEAGUE tables are misleading, hold down struggling schools and harm the teaching of activities like sport, music and drama.

These claims were made this week by bosses at Eton, left, and St Paul's – two of the country's most prominent private schools that are boycotting this year's performance tables,

Head teachers at the two independent schools – which regularly appear at the top of the national league tables – will refuse to submit their results to the Independent Schools Council for publication in August, following the release of grades in A-levels and GCSEs. Martin Stephen, the high master of St Paul's boys school in west London, urged other schools to follow their lead and rise up against the "tyranny" of the league tables.

He said the tables were misleading to parents, in part because they treated exam results for subjects like general studies as if they were the equivalent of traditional disciplines like maths and physics.

"The league tables have exerted tyranny over schools for 15 years, and I think it is time Les Miserables rose up," said Dr Stephen.

"Nobody in the world, apart from those in Whitehall, believes for instance that A-level general studies counts as a full A-level, yet the January league tables religiously, year after year, keep saying that it does.

"These league tables are a lie and I am a school master and I tell pupils not to tell lies and I think I should tell the Government not to tell lies."

He added: "They have not to my knowledge ever helped a school at all. Education should be a life-jacket - it should hold people up.

"What these league tables do is give complete nervous breakdowns to the schools at the top, in case they fall out of the top. And instead of acting like a life-jacket, they take a weak school and hold its head underwater.

"No school I have ever known has been improved by league tables. What they do is put a brand on a school's forehead, they bring it into disrepute and hold it back."

The league tables, he said, measured the wrong things and encouraged schools to divert time and resources away from activities which help children to develop the skills they need for modern life, such as sport, music and drama.

Dr Stephen said he accepted that schools have to publish their results, but said a more sophisticated system should be employed to enable parents to judge how well a school is performing in relation to those with which it is genuinely comparable. The current system "compares apples and pears as if they were the same thing", he said.

"They have produced these league tables which cast schools as failures, but they do it on the wrong information," he said.

"We are not arguing that results shouldn't be published. A far more sane system would be for the Government to take each type of school and produce a mean performance for that type of school, so parents know what an inner-city urban comprehensive should be achieving."

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Transparency and accountability in the schools system are non-negotiable. Parents do not want to go back to a world where schools were closed institutions.

"Parents have a clear right to know how well their school is doing and publication of results is here to stay."