School league tables under fire: A Shropshire headteacher writes

On September 28, 2013, Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, made an announcement via an article in the Times newspaper.

He said that, as from the next day, the rules on what would be included in the school league tables would change.

The new rules about GSCE league tables were announced in September 2013 by then-education secretary Michael Gove.

He accused schools of playing the system to make their results look better – and ordered that the system should change immediately.

Mr Gove said many schools were entering pupils for their exams early, in the hope they would "bank" a pass.

He said that those who failed could resit them, often several times, with only their best grade going towards the league table ranking.

He said: "The school is in effect gaming the system by not thinking what is in the best interest of the student but using the student as a means of gathering points so that the school itself can look better."

Mr Gove's comments infuriated many headteachers including Alan Doust, who has been head of The Community College in Bishop's Castle for around four years.

He said he felt compelled by the decision to write today's open letter.

He said: "I work in a school where we always put pupils first, and that is what we based our decision on."

Mr Doust said while there were arguments for and against entering pupils for exams earlier than they might otherwise sit them, there was no question of it being done for anything other than the best interests of the pupils.

He said by introducing the changes during the school year, and without consultation, it left schools with the decision about whether to withdraw youngsters from exams they had intended entering them for.

His school has decided to press ahead with the exams its pupils had been entered for, despite it having a detrimental on the school's ranking.

The most significant change was that from September 29 only a pupil's first entry to a GCSE examination would count in their school's performance tables, rather than their best entry.

There are many arguments for and against allowing pupils to sit GCSEs early, and then possibly resit later in order to improve their grade.

But this abrupt change of policy meant that a large number of secondary schools across England had to hurriedly reconsider their plans for GCSE entries.

The uncertainty this created reverberated around the education world and naturally there was a lot of criticism of Michael Gove about how he could be allowed to make such a significant change mid-way through an academic year, with no consultation and with immediate effect.

At the time of the announcement, many schools had already entered pupils for some subjects (English and maths, for example) in November and were busy preparing their youngsters for the forthcoming exams.

Mr Gove's announcement meant an about-turn for many schools, many of whom set about withdrawing pupils from the earlier exams and re-entering them again for summer.

Primarily this was because they were concerned about how their school would be rated when it came to the performance tables, which are set to be released on Thursday.

Previous to Gove's announcement, the policy had been that a pupil's best grade would be used to rank the school. Now it was to be only their first. For most schools this could have quite an effect on how they were to be ranked.

At the Community College, Bishop's Castle, we were particularly furious.

We do not enter pupils on a whim and last year we were in the process of carefully preparing about half our pupils to take their English and maths GCSEs in November as part of a whole-school plan to raise standards.

Whilst many schools, for their own reasons, decided to withdraw their pupils, The Community College and about three other secondary schools in Shropshire decided to continue with their planned approach despite Gove's interference.

As a result, the pupils at The Community College performed extraordinarily well by the time they left us.

The 'value' that we added to this group of pupils has been astonishing, and certainly the best in the college's recent history.

However I think it is important that the public are made aware that our school, and others like us, are essentially being penalised because the rules changed mid-year.

You should all be aware of this on Thursday – the league tables are now an unreliable measure of school performance.

• Judge for yourself – GCSE league tables in Thursday’s Shropshire Star