A-levels: the class divide

Independent and selective state grammar schools are overwhelmingly responsible for the rise in A-grade passes at A-level, the head of Britain's biggest exams board reveals today. The growing divide in achievement means the gap in performance between the country's top-performing selective schools - state and private - and the rest is now at its widest for more than a decade. The trend is expected to be exacerbated following the publication of A-level results for more than 250,000 sixth-formers this morning.

It also comes in the wake of a report for the education charity the Sutton Trust, which reveals the gap in performance between private and state schools is higher in the UK than any other country in the Western world.

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In an interview with The Independent, Mike Creswell, the director general of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, said the biggest rises in A-grade passes were among independent and selective state grammar schools.

There was a far more limited improvement in comprehensive schools and, in total contrast, students sitting the exam in the country's remaining secondary modern schools had shown no improvement at all, flatlining for a decade. "Their A-level results are static," said Dr Creswell. "They have barely changed in 10 years." Figures show 15.7 per cent of all A-level scripts achieved an A-grade pass in 1997 at a time when 31.7 per cent of private school entries were awarded an A grade - a gap of 16 percentage points. Last year saw 24.1 per cent of all entries being awarded an A-grade pass compared with 47.5 per cent of scripts from private schools.

That means the gap has risen to 23.4 percentage points - a rise of almost 50 per cent in the 10-year period. As state selective schools have also shown a big increase in A-grade passes, the figures indicate the gap between schools which select intake and comprehensives and secondary moderns is becoming a chasm.

Headteachers' leaders are worried that the divide will grow still further with the introduction of a new A* grade for candidates - to be awarded for the first time to those who sit the exam in 2010.

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, which represents secondary school headteachers, said: "One of the worst aspects of the A* is it might exacerbate that trend. Highly selective schools will be able to push the cream of their students for it."

Dr Creswell cited the fact that the big rise in A-grade passes in independent and state grammar schools had not been mirrored in secondary modern schools as evidence that A-levels had not been "dumbed down" - as some critics have claimed. "If it had been, you would have expected there to be improvements all round," he said. The rise in the overall pass rate in the past decade, he argued, "only means one or two extra students in each subject in the average school improving their pass rate".

"Surely it is not beyond the realms of possibility that schools have managed this?" he said.

Professor Alan Smithers, the head of the Centre for Education and Employment at the University of Buckingham, said the private schools' rise in performance was largely down to their students' subject choices. "These schools would offer subjects like further maths and physics and modern foreign languages - subjects where there are a high percentage of A grades," he added.

"Across the system as a whole you've got this great growth in subjects like media studies and the expressive arts - whereas it is the more traditional academic subjects which have the highest percentage of A grade passes." It was Professor Smithers' research for the Sutton Trust, run by the millionaire philanthropist Sir Peter Lampl to encourage youngsters from deprived backgrounds to opt for top universities, which first revealed the gap in performance between the private and state sector in the UK was the widest in the Western world.

Figures gave independent schools a points score of 614 on a reading test for 15-year-olds - compared with 515 obtained by the state sector. The 99-point gap was the highest for any country in the survey. "The independent schools, in fact, achieve the best scores in the world," Professor Smithers concluded.

An international study of 30 developed nations by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development later came to the same conclusion. Dr Creswell's comments follow Gordon Brown's pledge to raise spending on state schools to the level of that in the private sector - a move which would cost billions of pounds. The average cost of educating a pupil in the state sector is £4,500 a year - while the figure for private schools is more than £8,000. Critics argued that he should concentrate resources on schools serving the most deprived communities.

Liberal Democrats yesterday called for an independent review of exam standards in the wake of today's results - which are expected to a show a further rise in A-grade passes that may just nudge them up to 25 per cent for the first time. Stephen Williams, the party's schools spokesman, said: "Young people who have worked hard to pass their exams should not have their day spoilt by the annual ritual of commentators alleging a fall in standards. "

www.independent.co.uk/clearing

The performance gap

The selective school

Last year, in ranking the 500 top performing secondary schools in the country, The Sunday Times put Colyton Grammar in Devon in 16th place. There was another school tying in the same place - Eton. Sixth-formers sitting A-levels at Colyton last year achieved a score of 1,250.9 per pupil - similar to the public school, whose annual fees are £25,000 a year. That is the equivalent of more than four A-grade passes for every pupil who sat the exam - an achievement that a non-selective school in an urban area has never attained. Colyton's score has steadily risen in the past decade - although it has always been in the top echelons of the 164 English grammar schools. Its success will rekindle the debate over selective schooling - possibly causing further headaches for the Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, who has set his face against opening more grammars.

The secondary modern

Northfleet Technology College is bottom of the A-level table for Kent. Last year, its pupils had an average point score of 334 - a D and E grade pass per pupil. But academics say it would be wrong to compare it to a high-flyer like Colyton. It is near Gravesend, which has two selective grammars - a boys' and a girls' - that cream off the brightest. In fact, Northfleet is making strides since it changed its name and became a new specialist secondary school - specialising in technology. Last year, a pupil achieved 16 A* to C grade passes at GCSE. But as Martin Stephen, head of St Paul's in Barnes, west London - a top fee-paying school, puts it: "You need a critical mass of pupils performing highly before you can spark off the improvements of the private and selective state sector". Kent has more secondary-modern schools than any other authority. It will lack that critical mass.