Tag Archives: comprehensive schools

Does where you study make a difference to ‘A’ Level outcomes?

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Next week, pupils will receive their GCSE results and will then have to decide where to continue their studies. If they are intending to take ‘A’ levels, then the options may be between staying on at the same school or transferring either to another school or to an institution run under further education rules such as either a general further education college or a Sixth Form College, where they exist.

As the tables for this years’ results by type of institution shows, there are different percentage in terms of outcomes.

Centre typeYearPercentage of results at grade A and abovePercentage of results at grade C and above
Independent school including city training colleges (CTCs)202548.40%89.70%
Secondary selective school202543.70%88.20%
Free schools202531.30%80.60%
All state-funded202525.20%76.30%
Sixth form college202524.00%76.20%
Academies202523.10%75.00%
Secondary comprehensive or middle school202522.60%75.20%
Other202516.40%55.80%
Secondary modern school/high school202516.30%64.80%
Further education establishment202514.40%66.30%

Young people across England celebrate exam results – GOV.UK

I don’t think anyone would be surprised to see independent schools with the highest percentage of results at A*-A. But it is important to understand what the policy about entering candidates for the examination is when considering outcomes. Is anyone taking the subject entered or is there a bar to be achieved at ‘mock’ exam time to be allowed to enter.

These results also cannot identify any time candidates spent either on tutoring during the course or cramming during the Easer break before the actual examinations.

I am not sure whether the institutions classified as ‘City Training Colleges’ are actually ‘City Technology Colleges’. If so, it is not clear where UTCs and Studio Schools have been located? Possibly, along with the academies group or do they make up the ‘other group’ and does ‘other’ include special schools.  Why Free Schools merit a separate line under a Labour government is an interesting question.

It is also not clear whether the further education establishments (not Sixth Form Colleges) include entries from adults as well as those that would be in Year 13 if at a school? Certainly, anyone thinking of doing ‘A’ levels at a college might want to ask about the grades achieved by students at the college. The eight per cent gap to a comprehensive school for those gaining the top grades in a further education establishment and the nearly nine per cent gap for Grade C and above merits questions if faced with the choice. However, an earlier post noted, there are differences in the percentage of candidates achieving top grades between different subjects, and that may well be a factor in the outcomes.

This year, boys outperformed girls for the first time since 2018. There have also been different rates of improvement when comparing percentages achieving the top grades by type of institution. Without knowing what types of institution are classified as ‘other’ it is difficult to account for the decline in outcomes for the top grades for these schools.

Provider% difference 2025 on 2023
Free schools4
Secondary modern school/high school2.7
Secondary selective school2.3
Independent school including city training colleges (CTCs)1.9
All state-funded1.7
Academies1.6
Sixth form college1.5
Secondary comprehensive1.3
Further education establishment0.7
Other-2.3

It would also be integrating to compare the different types of intuitions by their outcomes by region.

Baroness Williams of Crosby

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I am saddened to hear of the death earlier today of Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby.

Baroness Williams was one of the founders of the SDP and had previously been an education secretary during the Labour government of the late 1970s. Created a Life peer in 1993, Baroness Williams played an important background role in education for the Party in her role as a senior politician of wide experience. Her great speaking ability motivated many audiences in both the conference hall and at fringe meetings during many Liberal Democrat conferences over the years. She finally retired from the House of Lords in 2016, but remained an inspiring figure for many in the Liberal Democrats.

In a blog post when another Liberal Democrats stalwart of the House of Lords, Baroness Sharp of Guildford retired, I paid tribute to these two Peers along with Annette Brooke the former MP. All were important for the Liberal Democrats in the field of education, from early years to higher education.

I first encountered Shirley Williams when she was Secretary of State for Education. She initiated The Great Debate in Education on the back of the Prime minister’s famous Ruskin College speech. This was the start of the shift from a national service locally administered to a nationally driven education service that we now have in England. I had achieved some notoriety after appearing in the national press and was invited to several media events where Shirley Williams was the speaker. I especially recall one such event in the Royal Institution where she was opposed Norman St John Stevas, possibly one of the best Secretaries of State we never had.

It was Shirley William’s misfortune to be secretary of State when the government of Jim Callaghan was teetering on the edge of collapse. She had to endure the ‘winter of discontent’ and during that period she failed to stop the caretaker’s strike in Haringey that lead to several weeks of school closures.

Although successful in taking North Yorkshire County Council to court over the need to create non-selective education in Ripon, it was too late in the parliament and the life of the Labour government for any action to be taken on the result that backed the government’s view of the 1976 Education Act, and so, along with the other selective schools that she tried to convert to comprehensive education, selective education still remains in that part of Yorkshire, helped by Mrs thatcher’s prompt repealing of the 1976 Act as one of her first actions as Prime Minister.  

Shirley Williams was an inspiring orator and a joy to listen to when speaking at Liberal Democrat events, either extempore or from a prepared speech. She was not a good timekeeper and was often late, but nobody ever seemed to mind. She was also a great European and had the courage to from a new political party. Along with many other, I will miss her.

Reflections on half a century of education

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Half a century ago this week I started my teaching career at a comprehensive school in Tottenham. I have before me, as I write this blog, the actual letter, dated 4th December 1970 from the Chief Education Officer’s representative, appointing me to the unestablished staff of Haringey Council, as an assistant teacher at Tottenham School for the spring term of 1971. Interestingly, it was during the only period of the Council’s history when it was under Conservative control (1968-1972).

The letter from the council also contained the phrase ‘or such other school maintained by the Council to which you may be called upon to serve’. In practice, I remained at the school until December 1977, when my journey to Oxford and a very different future began. I also have the letter detailing my starting salary of £1,325 per year including a London Allowance payment of £85 per year and the grant of one increment for post-18 study! As I marvelled at the level of my father’s starting salary in 1936, so readers of this blog just starting out may wonder at such an apparent paltry sum of little over £100 a month before stoppages.

At least one regular reader of this blog will recall, Tottenham School had a reputation for music and drama that continued from the selective school from which the comprehensive school had emerged. The comprehensive school was a tough baptism for a new and untrained teacher, because many of the staff had never before taught those that had not passed the 11+ examination and had previously been educated in secondary modern schools, where the class teacher model rather than the subject teacher approach had been the norm. Both pupils and teachers found it difficult to adapt to the new situation.

My appointment had come about as a result of a staffing crisis facing schools as pupil numbers were on the increase, as now, and insufficient people were being trained as teachers. I joined as an untrained graduate, expecting to stay until the summer and then to undertake a higher degree course, perhaps at a Canadian university. The departure of the Head of Geography for a deputy headship at the end of May changed all that, especially as the other full-time geography teacher was expecting to emigrate to Australia the following December. Suddenly, I became acting head of department after two terms of teaching. Not a promotion that I would now encourage, but one that I was happy to take at the time.

The highlight of my six years at the school was seeing the first comprehensive sixth from students win a prestigious adult drama festival with a production of The Bald Prima Donna by Eugene Ionesco. The low point, probably the classroom stabbing in January 1977.

There were many great colleagues and pupils that I came into contact with during those years. Some, sadly no longer with us. There were many things that happened that would be more than frowned upon today, but a happy accident of chance set me on a road I still enjoy travelling.

Tories & Grammar Schools

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As most followers of education know, Buckinghamshire was one of the counties that refused to fall into line with the 1976 Education Act and produce a programme for the removal of their grammar schools. As a result, it retains a selective system across the county after having seen Milton Keynes and its comprehensives split off in the 1990s to become a unitary council.

One might think that as a result of being a selective county, parents in Buckinghamshire wouldn’t be very interested in the present Tory inspired debate on the topic of more selective schools. Not a bit of it. While Mrs May, as Prime Minister, is talking about increasing the number of pupils from deprived backgrounds attending selective schools, or at least I think that is what she is saying, Bucks County Council has consulted on a proposal that would make it even more difficult for such pupils to attend grammar schools, especially if they lived in the rural parts of the county.

In a consultation on changing the home to school transport policy earlier this year, the county said;

This potential change would mean that free school transport would only be provided to the nearest secondary school to your home address.  The school could be located in Buckinghamshire or in a neighbouring county and could be an Upper, Grammar (for qualified children only) or Comprehensive.

As I read the paragraph above, if the nearest school is a secondary modern, even if the grammar school is next door to it, you won’t be provided in the future  with free transport to the grammar school unless it is the nearest school, even if you pass the entrance test and are offered a place. This is interesting in the town of Buckingham, where the grammar and secondary modern schools are adjacent to each other: those coming from the north could have the secondary modern as their nearest schools and those from the south, the grammar school. That is frankly madness if it is the case as a result of the consultation being accepted.

If this view is also accepted by government, it would seem to fly in the face of helping more children from deprived backgrounds to attend selective schools, if on top of uniform and other costs their parents also had to pay the transport cost of attending a grammar school, but not a secondary modern.

Personally, as regular reads know, I would do away with selective schools and make all schools achieve the very best for all pupils in an inclusive social setting. How schools are organised internally to achieve that aim is a different matter.

Perhaps, because transport to school is free for all in London, Mrs May, an MP whose constituency abuts Buckinghamshire to the south, hasn’t picked up on how her party is behaving with regard to grammar schools and widening participation. The solution of free transport to school of choice for all, as in London.

Grammar schools to combat ‘elitism’?

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Before writing this piece I must declare an interest; I attended a local authority grammar school during the early 1960s.  Indeed, it was one of the first Co-educational grammar schools that were founded after the Balfour’s 1902 Education Act. I then went on to attend the LSE, and only to Oxford University for my advanced degree sometime later.

The recent Sutton Trust research about the social backgrounds of those pupils that win places at grammar schools shows why just increasing the number of such schools would probably have little effect on combating elitism in English society. The middle class would pay through the nose for primary education to secure the prize of a grammar school place knowing that secondary education would then be free. There would be a devastating effect on the secondary private school market, as it would largely be redundant. You have only to look at the distribution of independent days schools in relation to the remaining selective state schools to see how this trend might develop.

It is far better to develop a high quality comprehensive and local state funded school system as the alternative to those parents that want to pay for private education. There are some Conservatives that want to go the other way and force the State to pay for all education, but it is difficult to see how that end could be achieved without a serious hike in general taxation, something these same Conservatives often strenuously oppose.

Still, it is time to return to our discussion about grammar schools. The DfE Performance Tables show that 69% of pupils in Kent, where there are many grammar schools, made the expected progress in English to Key Stage 4, with 70.8% making the expected progress in Mathematics. In total, 61.3% achieved %A*-C GCSEs including English and Maths. By contrast, Hertfordshire that although it has two schools called grammar schools in Watford is technically a county of non-selective secondary schools, achieved 70% progress in English, about the same as in Kent, but 75% in Mathematics, significantly better than in Kent. Overall, 65.8% of Hertfordshire pupils met the 5A*-C target; again better than in Kent.

If we want our schools to work for all pupils, and not just future elites, then perhaps the Sutton Trust shouldn’t give up so quickly on the issue of whether grammar schools should remain. Their advocacy of blind admissions as the solution might ameliorate the situation, but would probably just inspire the middle classes to work harder at finding a way around the system.

The key issue is how to persuade middle class parents that their children will do as well, or possibly even better, in a non-selective secondary system. But, perhaps we cannot, since it isn’t just about academic outcomes but is about many other factors as well. However, I celebrate the fact that the Oxfordshire Orchestra playing at the School’s Prom this week will be largely comprised of pupils from comprehensive schools.