The heads of Eton and St Paul's School, in London, have announced that this year they will refuse to submit their GCSE and A-level results to the Independent Schools Council for publication immediately after the results come out in August.

This public rebellion by Eton and St Paul's, which regularly appear at the top of the school league tables, means that, if they could, they would even prevent their results from featuring in the Government's tables that will be published in January 2009.

Martin Stephen, the high master of St Paul's, has urged other independent schools to follow their lead and rise up against the "tyranny" of misleading league tables. The head of Eton has complained that the system "compares apples and pears as if they were the same thing."

Their argument is not against the principle of league table accountability. It is about the ridiculous weighting given to different subjects and the way in which the tables are presented.

Perhaps the most popular part of the secondary school tables is the percentage of pupils in each school who achieve five or more grade A*-C GCSEs. This may vary between perhaps 10 per cent and 100 per cent. But to hide their failures, Ministers and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the body charged with maintaining standards, have distorted even this basic measure of performance. They have given vocational GCSEs the same league table value as up to four academic GCSEs. So one subject, such as information communications technology (ICT), has the same value in the league tables as up to four separate GCSEs in say, chemistry, physics, maths and French.

To raise their position in the tables, all ineffective schools needed to do was to compel every pupil to take a vocational GCSE along with something comparatively easy such as religious education (RE) or physical education and, lo and behold, the school could claim success.

While this may have enhanced the reputation of politicians and many schools, it has damaged the prospects of many thousands of youngsters, who have been forced to drop GCSE history or geography or a foreign language, simply to improve their school's position in the league tables.

This has a knock-on effect. If a pupil hasn't acquired the basic knowledge of a science or language at GCSE level, he or she is unable to build on their knowledge of that subject at A-level.

And A-levels are where the independent schools are most worried.

As Martin Stephen says, at A-level, the league tables equate exam results in easier subjects, such as general studies, with more demanding academic subjects such as maths or physics.
This not only prevents the full scale
of the independent schools' achievements from registering in the tables. It disguises the under-performance of many state schools.

According to the Government, an A grade A-level in physics is worth 270 points. An advanced qualification in horse management is worth 263 points. An NVQ in drink dispenser systems is worth 480 points.

Ministers do not intend to end this spin. They have improved the basic measure of secondary school performance from five A*-C grade GCSEs in any subjects to five or more including English and maths. But their new diploma qualification, which is rightly being shunned by independent and grammar schools, offers a hair and beauty qualification that carries more points than three A-levels.

Everyone knows that the independent schools excel at teaching their pupils to achieve top grades in esteemed academic subjects. That's why parents pay fees.

But the degree to which the manipulation of league table evidence has distorted the curriculum and choice of subjects in state schools is alarming. Exam entries in harder subjects have dropped, while entries in easier subjects have soared.

As well as distorting the statistics they use, the tables omit important information, such as the type of school. This information can be obtained by looking at each individual school's webpage, but why should this be necessary unless it is to make the general performance of state schools, the Government and individual local authorities seem better than it is?

As things stand, results from independent schools and state grammar schools are mixed in with high performing and "bog-standard" comprehensive schools alike.

So what should be done? A good start would be for ministers to ensure that their league tables offer honest comparisons instead of misleading distortions. The type of school should be shown up front. The number of points allocated to all subjects should be reviewed and made logical. Then the basic measure of secondary school performance could be altered to show for each school the percentage of its pupils achieving six or more A*-C GCSEs which must include the basic subjects essential for a successful life: English, maths, general science or individual sciences, geography, history and a foreign language.

Public accountability must not disappear. It is, in fact, the only
way forward.


Nick Seaton is chairman of the Campaign for Real Education.