Statistics don’t tell the whole story

In August we receive our initial GCSE, AS and A Level results, these are very provisional and change, sometime quite dramatically. It has long been accepted that they can be quite misleading and at Myton we do not think potentially inaccurate data is helpful for parents and carers.
By The Newsroom
Published 23rd Jul 2014, 07:09 BST

There is a growing trend across the country, encouraged by the Association for School and College Leaders, that on examination results days schools will comment on student performance but not provide details of unverified whole cohort results for the following reasons:

1. Results are extremely provisional; while individually students will probably have some confidence in their results, the overall school cohort results fluctuate and this can be misleading.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

2. The pressure on schools to “spin” their results adds little to parents’ and the community’s perception of schools. Again this can be misleading and problematic, results are published on the school website later in September and we have more confidence in these as a whole cohort result.

Most Popular

3. Simplistic headline figures can also be extremely inaccurate. At A-level there are at least 4 key measures which are vitally important for the whole school and these cannot be reported on the examination results day.

4. The chair of governors, myself and the leadership team at Myton feel that we wish to support other state schools locally. We are committed to supporting them with their drive on standards, as they are supportive of ours, it is a strength of the state comprehensive and inclusive system. We always encourage parents who are interested in places at Myton to visit other state schools locally. We are fortunate that we have great state schools in Warwick and Leamington and the best way to judge them is to visit, listen and experience what they have to offer.

To this end Myton has decided that this year we will celebrate individual student performance on exam results day in August, we will comment about whether we are on target in terms of our ambitious goals which are our most challenging ever, but will not be providing raw data, ie last year 75 per cent five A*-C including English and maths, 95 per cent five A*-C etc (which again went up on appeal and review!).

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Raw unverified data adds little to a parent’s understanding of a school; similarly simplistic ‘league tables’.

We have encouraged other schools to follow our lead but there is no unanimous agreement amongst local schools. However we will take the lead as we feel secure in our examination performance and morally want to do the right thing.

We are mindful that the first school to do so may well be suspected of not publishing whole cohort results because ‘results are not very good’.

So, as we don’t yet know the results, although we are expecting them to be very good, we are publishing our plans now and explaining our reasons.

Paul MacIntyre, Headteacher, Myton School

Related topics:StatisticsGCSE