St Paul's to opt out of exam league tables

Eton and St Paul's are to boycott the 2008 exam league tables, claiming that the figures "cloak and distort" achievement.

The two independent schools are refusing to submit their results to the Independent Schools Council for publication in August, following the release of grades in A-levels and GCSEs.

Announcing the joint decision this week, Martin Stephen, the High Master of St Paul's School also criticised the Government's "politically driven" performance tables, which are published in January. The "nonsensical" data, which give equal standing to A-level physics and a qualification in flower arranging, are in effect lying to parents, he says in a Daily Telegraph article.

The boycott, a symbolic move, is an attempt to expose how rankings of state and independent schools "kill good teaching".

Dr Stephen said: "I have never believed that league tables told the truth about a school. Good schools have a morbid fear of slipping down the table, while struggling schools are branded with a mark of ignominy they cannot live down."

29th April 2008