Gibb cracks down on league table “incentive”

Released 23/01/2012

Secondary schools that fail to push their brightest children are to be put on a list of shame as part of a drive to prevent comprehensives exploiting league table standings

The DfE is planning to publish the results of more than 4,000 state-funded and independent schools in England

Schools Minister Nick Gibb has stated that he wants to stop schools prioritising league table standings ahead of universal pupil attainment.

Writing in the Telegraph, Gibb stated that "the purpose of performance tables must be to incentivise schools to raise standards and to enable parents to make informed decisions when choosing a school".

The minister also claimed that some teachers may be entering pupils for certain qualifications “that are more in the interests of a school’s league table position than the child’s own prospects”.

“If you look at the GCSE results since 1997 you see a dramatic increase in the proportion of C grades being awarded,” said the minister. “Weaker secondary schools have been given an incentive to focus only on these pupils. But what about the B students who might, with better teaching, achieve an A? Or the E students who could get a D?”

The DfE is planning to publish the results of more than 4,000 state-funded and independent schools in England.

The results are expected to show that just 86,209 out of 567,170 pupils in state schools competed their compulsory education with A* to C grades in a range of traditional core subjects of science maths, English, languages and history or geography.

Furthermore the number of children being entered for separate GCSE exams in these five disciplines dropped in the state system last summer, from 21.8% to 21.6%.

“Gaming”

The minister continued to state that some comprehensive schools had learned to utilise league tables in order to avoid intervention due to failure.

“We are determined to stamp out any incentives to game the system whereby some schools focus just on those pupils who will affect their league table position,” said Gibb.

"The way school league tables have evolved over the past two decades can encourage a degree of 'gaming' by some weaker schools, desperate to keep above the standard that would trigger intervention by Ofsted or the Department for Education.”

“Perverse incentives”

General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), Brian Lightman commented on the minister’s announcement.

“ASCL strongly supports the principle of openness in making performance data available to the public, provided the data is reliable and accurate. However, league tables in themselves do not raise standards,” he said.

“As long as the government emphasis is on just a few measures, there will be perverse incentives to focus on certain subjects and certain groups of students,” added Lightman.

“Contrary to many of the messages that are being sent out through the media, school leaders passionately want to raise standards and many have already achieved vast improvements over the last two decades.”

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