Leading schools attack exam tables

Leading independent and state schools are combining for the first time today to call on the Government to abandon the publication of examination league tables.

Five heads from fee-paying schools have joined those from five state schools at the top of the tables to urge Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, to stop publishing them. They claim they are misleading.

The five independent school heads include Edward Gould, Master of Marlborough College and chairman of the Headmasters' Conference – which represents all leading independent boys' schools – and Martin Stephen, High Master of Manchester Grammar School.

In a forthright attack, Mr Stephen said: "League tables and the mentality behind them are a cancer on the face of education. They blight exciting education, they tell lies about actual achievement of individuals and they treat human beings as statistics. League tables mean that we weigh the pig, but never fatten it."

Mr Gould added: "We should celebrate the success of young people without turning it into a competition between schools."

The plea comes as leaders of the Secondary Heads Association begin their annual conference in Bournemouth today. The SHA and HMC have signed a joint statement calling for an end to league tables.

Heads believe the Government's proposed shake-up for pupils aged 14 to 19 will mean that the brightest – who will be encouraged to take GCSEs early – will find their results excluded. The GCSE tables cover only the results of children aged 15 or 16 in their final year of compulsory schooling.

Tony Neal, president of the SHA and head of De Aston, a comprehensive school in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, added: "It is high time to abandon what has proved to be an unsuccessful experiment. We need more effective ways of judging the work of schools and informing parents and others how well they are doing."

Ms Morris has said the tables will have to change because of her shake-up. She is reinforcing them by publishing results of national curriculum tests for 14-year-olds to compare how pupils have performed at different stages.