St Paul's tops the Sunday Times boys' school table again

The Sunday Times published its annual Parent Power league table of the top 2000 schools in Britain on 18th November 2007 and, for the fourth year in a row, St Paul's headed the field of boys schools. They were beaten by only four girls schools, including its sister school SPGS which rose two places from 2006 to lead the table overall. The top ten schools are shown below, those in red denoting girls schools, blue giving boys schools and black representing schools with both boys and girls.

According to the Sunday Times, "schools are ranked by performance at A-level and GCSE in summer 2007. The number of A and B grades gained is expressed as a percentage of the total number of A-level entries overall. This is double-weighted. The number of A* and A grades gained at GCSE is expressed as a percentage of the total number of GCSE entries overall**. This is single weighted. School rankings are based on their combined performance in these examinations."

Separate tables were published for Preparatory Schools as well, these being based on performance at Key Stage 2 SATs. However possibly the majority of Preparatory Schools (including Colet Court) does not take these examinations and therefore does not appear in the Sunday Times lists. Many of the St Paul's feeder schools also share the Colet Court policy on Key Stage 2 and also fail to appear in the Preparatory Schools league tables.

Further information about the Parent Power survey can be found here.

** The heading GCSE (%A/B) is incorrectly labelled in the Sunday Times table and should, of course, read GCSE (%A*/A) instead.