ISC sends response to the Times

10 January 2008

The Independent Schools Council's Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Shephard has sent a letter to the Times in response to school league tables.

Letter to the Times 

Sir,

You are correct to recognise that school league table measures of attainment 'only tell half the story' ('Absolute scores can be totally misleading, 10/01/08). They fail to take into account factors other than academic merit, meaning non-selective schools are often not recognised for the excellent work they do in educating children at all ability levels. In addition, qualifications such as the International GCSE (IGCSE) are not included, giving schools offering the IGCSE a nil score.

The Independent Schools Council did indeed refuse to supply statistics including IGCSE results for individual schools. The aggregate statistics supplied to all newspapers showed that with IGCSE results included the actual % of pupils gaining 5 or more GCSE's at A* - C including Maths and English at ISC schools was 93.5%, not the 60.2% published via DCSF data. The reason for not supplying data for individual schools is that we do not believe that league tables serve a useful purpose and do not wish to shore up their credibility.

Jonathan Shephard

Chief Executive, ISC