Some of England's top secondary schools have branded the latest school league tables a "nonsense" after a change in the government ranking system left them "bottom of the class".
The league tables no longer include International GCSEs, a qualification favoured by many independent and leading state schools as a more rigorous assessment than the standard GCSEs.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Top-performing schools offering the IGCSE exam have therefore plummeted down the rankings, falling from a 100 per cent pass rate last year to zero per cent this year, says The Independent.
Richard Harman, chairman of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, said the decision had made a "nonsense" of the league tables.
"Several of the UK's most highly performing independent schools and others offering this excellent qualification will now appear to be bottom of the class in the government's rankings," he told the BBC.
"This obviously absurd situation creates further confusion for parents as they cannot compare schools' performance accurately and transparently."
In another change, this year's tables only took into account a pupil's first attempt at a qualification, even if they achieved a better result by re-sitting the exam.
A spokesman for the Department for Education said that schools had been issued guidance on the changes to the system, which had previously "rewarded the wrong outcomes".
He added that ministers have "stripped out qualifications that were of little value and are making sure pupils take exams when they are ready, not before".
An editorial in today's Independent says the government should "think more carefully" about the consequences of changes before introducing them, but that headteachers should also avoid "panic reactions" to every change from Whitehall.
As Jon Coles, chief executive of United Learning, tells the newspaper, "increasing schools' focus on the needs of their pupils does require a reduced focus on the wishes of government".
-
Music reviews: Laufey, Deftones, and Earl SweatshirtFeature "A Matter of Time," "Private Music," and "Live Laugh Love"
-
'What's profitable today is not unification. It's segmentation.'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
GPT-5: Not quite ready to take over the worldFeature OpenAI rolls back its GPT-5 model after a poorly received launch
-
English literature: is it doomed?Speed Read Arts and humanities courses are under attack thanks to a shift to ‘skills-led’ learning
-
Are UK classrooms a new political battleground?Speed Read Government has issued new guidance on political neutrality in schools
-
Kathleen Stock resigns: the ‘hounding’ of an academic on the front line of transgender rights debateSpeed Read Sussex University students claim ‘trans and non-binary students are safer and happier for it’
-
How 100,000 ‘lost children’ disappeared from UK school systemSpeed Read Experts warn that vulnerable pupils may be recruited by gangs after failing to return to education post-lockdown
-
Why is the government planning to cut arts education funding by 50%?Speed Read Proposal described by critics as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘an attack on the future of UK arts’
-
Schools do not spread Covid-19, multiple studies findSpeed Read Reports from Germany, Norway and the WHO conclude schoolchildren are not vector of infection
-
Universities must consider refunding students hit by Covid disruption, regulator warnsSpeed Read Institutions under investigation as thousands of undergraduates remain locked down amid coronavirus outbreaks
-
Coronavirus: will UK schools have to close again?Speed Read Thousands of teachers are self-isolating - but the government is determined not to order new closures
