Top Brum school 'bottom of class'

Jan 11 2007 By Tony Collins, Birmingham Mail

THE head of one of the country's top schools today branded national GCSE league tables as "absolute nonsense" after their pupils were placed bottom of the class.

The independent King Edward's High School for Girls, in Edgbaston, has been given a zero score based on the number of pupils obtaining at least five good GCSE passes.

Despite the fee paying school regularly being at the top of national performance tables at both GCSE and A-level, this year's results saw a "O per cent" figure alongside the achievement of its 15 and 16-year-olds.

The apparent "failure" was due to King Edward's High School for Girls adopting a new type of maths exam last year.

But the International GCSE in Maths is not recognised by national exam body, the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (QCA).

As such, no maths results have been lodged on behalf of the school.

And, with the Government introducing a new style of GCSE measure, which includes maths and English among the "scoring" subjects, the result is that the King Edward's school has been given an overall figure of nought.

It has also been placed at the bottom of the GCSE rankings for secondary schools in Birmingham.

Head teacher Sarah Evans said: "It makes an absolute nonsense of the league tables and is actually giving misinformation.

"This was the first year that we did the International exam because we thought it was more challenging, but our results have gone down from 100 per cent to nought.

"I knew at the time this might be the consequence but hoped the Department for Education would see sense.

"A total of 78 girls sat it, and all got C's or above with 67 achieving A*s or As, so they did really well."

But the QCA revealed that the International GCSE was not an accredited qualification.