Star comment: Puzzle of the drop in exam grades
Searching for meaning in school exam league tables has become an art form, and so it is again today with the release of the latest GCSE figures for Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin.
The percentage of pupils in Shropshire gaining five or more A* to C grades in subjects including the key areas of English and maths has
Which might tell Shropshire parents something, or it might tell you nothing at all of note. It really is a case of choosing whichever theory to explain it that you prefer.
The latest exam takers were not as capable as those of 2011. Teaching standards have fallen. More schools are giving more borderline pupils a chance to have a go. The Government would probably blame the weather.
Or, and this is the explanation being advanced by officials in Shropshire, this slight drop in performance is explained by a raising of the bar when it comes to marking the exam papers. In other words, pupils taking exams in the past had it easy, while today's exam-takers face a more rigorous and exacting assessment.
Similar endless debate about the reasons can be had by chewing over the fact that the pass rate across Telford & Wrekin is now 61.3 per cent, eclipsing that in the Shropshire Council patch, a counter-intuitive outcome when urbanised Telford has previously always seemed to run second best.
Indeed Phoenix School in Dawley's pass rate is rated in the bottom 200 state schools – parents there will be looking forward to a new start in their brand new school now nearing completion.
Six county schools are in the top 200, including the Thomas Telford School, which has been so consistently in the educational Premier League that here, at least, there can be no argument about it being a beacon of excellence.
