Alevel league tables

[Guest55]

This data is pointless without understanding Year 12 starting points and any 'policy' at the end of Year 12 for progression to Year 13.

[Walthams]

Isn’t it reasonable to assume year 12 starting points must be good since this is a grammar school and these kids have been at Latymer from year 7 and must have been v good to get to the school and to stay there - they need good GCSEs to stay on. And the extra students taken on in year 12 need excellent GCSE grades to get accepted into year 12. Perhaps there is a problem with the quality of their teaching at alevel, because I just cannot see a different explanation..? Someone with a child doing alevels at Latymer could probably say more.

[Guest55]

Yes but what is the 'barrier' for progression to Year 13 at all these schools? What does the progress data look like?

[Jean.Brodie]

Hi Walthams!

Guest55 is absolutely right! Indeed, I would go further and remind us all about the old saying about 'Lies, damned lies and statistics'!

And your statistics really are not comparable.

Your collection of schools breaks down into private and state, better funded and worse funded, specially targeted or not, selective and non-selective (formally, academically), selective in other ways (social, political), single sex male, single sex female and co-ed, and so on.

Also, you need to isolate the comparable cohort with comparable subjects from each school: same collection of subjects (Latin is considered 'hard', 'Economics & Business' is considered 'soft') and pupils who spent the full 7 years at their school. You then need to decide which exam boards are 'harder' and which are easier, subject by subject. And then ....

But we can say two things clearly:

that, broadly, all the schools in your list are academically 'better' schools compared to most other schools, and

that I really would not want to choose a school based on league tables, even though so many people sadly do just that.

How did we decide? Our eventual criteria for our daughter, in order of importance, were:- prospect of happiness, behaviour, pressures on teenage girls, cultural-educational values, academic expectations, local school, easy travel, , 'vibe', career-university destinations, facilities, fees.

[ninanina]

As someone who has seen a family friend’s child go to Latymer for 6th form with 6 A* and rest all As, and end up with ABB grades at alevels which shattered his plans of choosing his dream degree and studying for his dream career, I would say that we need to consider all statistics.

Whether the reason that a lot of these private schools do better than Latymer lies in the funding problem of the school or easier vs harder exam board, it does not matter for the child who did not succeed in his alevels. If certain exam boards are easier, then the school school choose them, shouldn’t they? Universities do not care which exam board someone did, they just care about the grades. In what way less funding could affect the alevel results (apart from perhaps narrower alevel subject choices)? HBS, QE and Latymer all have similar funding I suppose, so that cannot explain difference in their alevel results. I don’t think there is anything wrong in comparing mixed vs girl only vs boy, it is a question of ability and ability is not affected by sex.

As a parent whose child passed to some of the schools on that list I can say we finally decided to send our dc to a school not from that list primarily due to ease of transport. However, time will show whether it was a good decision or not, but I do feel worried and I would be more relaxed knowing that our school achieves better alevel results.

I just think that these statistics simply show that these other schools are doing better than Latymer and that’s it. Whatever the reason. Surprising indeed knowing how selective Latymer is - I do think their kids are just as able as the kids at these other schools so they should do just as well but they don’t.

[Guest55]

Private schools can distort their results because parents often pay for exam entries; the results can then be 'disguised' as private candidates.

How is AAB failing their A levels? We don't know any background here ... doing well at GCSE is no guarantee of a good A level grade.

[kenyancowgirl]

ninanina - ability can be affected by sex in the sense that boys (and girls) can behave very differently if in a single sex school or co-ed. Some benefit from being in a single sex arena - ie they don't get distracted - others need the co-ed to avoid bullying (which can be magnified in the single sex arena). These are just examples as to ways some children may get "distracted" from doing their best.

[loobylou]

G55 will know more about this than me but there is a Progress score on the DfE website for A levels which I assume is a similar thing to the Progress 8 at GCSE. ie looking at the A level results based on the entrance level at year 12.
I assume 0 is normal (ie they get the A level results you'd expect based on entry levels?), that + scores mean they get better A level results than would have been predicted at entry and - scores mean the A level results are worse.
For Latymer that score is +0.04 ie it suggests that the A level results are exactly what would be expected of their students.
For HBS that score is also +0.04.
For QEB that score is also +0.04.
A couple of random comprehensive schools in Barnet have + 0.22 and + 0.3.
DAO has + 0.18.
The same Bucks grammar I looked at before has +0.15
Tiffins Girls has - 0.02
Tiffin Boys has + 0.06
St Olave's has + 0.12
If I'm correct in my assumptions about the progress score and not misinterpreting the data, then it looks as though Latymer, HBS QEB and both Tiffins are getting exactly the A levels one would expect based on their pupils - and the other schools are doing rather better than expected.

[loobylou]

And (for the sake of completeness though I don't really trust all the data for indies), the same figures for the ones you listed are:
Kings College Maths +0.97
Alleyn's +0.22
KCL +0.16
Bancrofts +0.07
Latymer Upper +0.05
Dulwich -0.01
Wimbledon High -0.08

[Guest55]

This is 2017 data - we should really look at three years to draw conclusions.