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School League Tables: Tables Have Had Their Day, Says Britain's Best Head

Posted on: Thursday, 19 January 2006, 03:03 CST

The headteacher of the secondary school named as the best in the country has called for league tables to be abolished amid a row over academic standards.

Michelle Magrs, headteacher at Selly Park Technology College for Girls in Birmingham, said she would like to see the the end of league tables because "you can make anything out of statistics".

Her comments followed similar remarks from top primary school heads last year and were backed by the country's biggest headteachers' union.

Selly Park topped the table of schools for "value-added", which is designed to show how much schools contribute to helping their pupils.

The college was judged to have had a bigger impact on improving the results for its pupils between the ages of 11 and 16 than any other school in England.

Ms Magrs said: "We are absolutely delighted. On behalf of our staff, but also our pupils, parents and governors. It's brilliant news for the school."

The college has abolished study leave for GCSE pupils because "we feel the children would not use their time wisely at home", she said.

And every half term, the school timetable is suspended for one day to allow all pupils to focus on their own targets with extra help from their teachers.

But Ms Magrs insisted that league tables had the potential to be very unfair, particularly to schools with poor results.

"It would be nice to get rid of them," she said.

"You can use statistics to show anything.

"Tables can be damaging to some schools who are trying their utmost to support their pupils."

Meanwhile, experts warned that league tables were leading many schools to abandon traditional academic GCSEs in favour of so- called "soft" options.

Prof Alan Smithers, from the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, said Ministers should rely less on league table figures.

Pupils at too many schools were being "nudged" into taking easier subjects to help boost their school's standing in the league tables, he said.

The National Association of Head Teachers agreed that league tables should be scrapped.

Carole Whitty, deputy general secretary of the NAHT, said: "League tables have had their day.

"It could be argued that they served a purpose 15 years ago in raising the levels of public awareness.

"But now they are even more nonsensical."

Source: Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK)

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