TOP 1,000 SCHOOLS FINANCIAL TIMES SPECIAL REPORT | Saturday March 8 2008 www.ft.com/top1000schools2008 Winners on a learning curve ● Private schools dominate the rankings again ● Parents' guide to the best choice ● Where learning can be a lesson for life 2 FINANCIAL TIMES SATURDAY MARCH 8 2008 Top 1,000 Schools In This Issue Location, location, education... COSTLY DILEMMA Many families are torn between spending a small fortune to live near the best state schools or paying private school fees, writes Liz Lightfoot Pages 4-5 Diploma fans say breadth is best INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE Supporters of the IB believe it is better than A-levels at dividing the very brainy from the amazingly brainy, writes Francis Beckett Page 6 Hit rate is no flash in the pan GETTING IN Just 30 schools supply a quarter of successful Oxbridge applicants. Lisa Freedman looks at the variety of factors that help them achieve this Pages 8-9 Testing times: pupils at Colyton Grammar School in Devon, up from 92nd in 2006 to 85th last year, sitting exams Alamy It's not all about learning CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS In the pursuit of better academic performance, have schools lost sight of the need to produce happy pupils, asks Miranda Green Page 9 Class action The FT Top 1,000 MAIN LISTING Arranged by county, with a guide by Simon Briscoe Pages 10-15 that gets results ON THE WEB An interactive version of the top notably of all Westminster, and then regarded as highly them shows the pressure 100 schools in the ranking, and more tables, The rankings are which takes bright girls in academic said the school heads feel under. including the top grammar and state led by the usual the sixth form who help it to should accept such behav- Moreover, the heads of pri- non-grammar schools and all the risers and the very top of the league. iour as a fact of life. But vate schools of even mid- fallers www.ft.com/top1000schools2008 suspects, says Given the dominance of nowadays the teacher would dling achievement admit David Turner, but private schools, the biggest have been told to shape up at they are stricter than before question therefore is, why? the very least, and quite pos- at weeding out children who Hard truth about `soft options' how do they do it? How have they managed to sibly be sacked, concludes are not likely to thrive at NEWER SUBJECTS The debate over whether maintain their hold as the the Yorkshire head. sixth form, even though it one A-level is worth as much as another is nce again private purveyors of the best aca- Schools may treat the means foregoing school fees. joined by Huw Richards Page 16 schools dominate demic results, and the insti- teachers much more harshly, Schools with a gentler the Financial tutions that send dispropor- but the pupils sometimes approach towards pupils and Times rankings of tionately high numbers of have a worse time still. staff suffer accordingly in the Othe top-performing 1,000 pupils to Russell Group uni- Observers of the private league tables. Contributors institutions by A-level versities? school system note that It is a system that most results, in a relentlessly Most independent school selection by academic ability, heads bemoan, but in which David Turner +44 (0)20 7873 4906, reproduced pattern generally heads privately say the sec- rather than long-standing they are trapped and that Education Correspondent Fax: +44 (0)20 7873 relieved only by a smattering tor has done so by adopting a family links, has become they are propping up. Simon Briscoe 3064, e-mail: of grammar schools and com- much more ruthless attitude much more the rule at those But in one important prehensives in middle-class than a generation ago, to private schools that are over- respect it works for the chil- Statistics Editor [email protected] areas. They account for nine both staff and pupils. This subscribed. dren. Research led by Fran- Miranda Green, Francis Department for Children, of the top 10, and 17 of the explains why their share of There is even a series of cis Green of Kent University Beckett, Liz Lightfoot, Schools and Families top 20. Cambridge University under- possibly apocryphal urban identified a clear earnings Huw Richards data supplied by Another interesting pat- graduate admissions has myths doing the rounds premium among private FT Contributors Ralph Lucas of The tern is that 17 of the top 20 risen from a 1980 nadir of 31 among private school heads, school pupils born in 1970, Lisa Freedman Good Schools Guide are single-sex schools. This per cent to a gently undulat- of alleged dirty tricks to push after stripping out socio-eco- Contributing editor,The (www.goodschools adds weight to recently ing rate of about 45 per cent schools up the tables. But no nomic factors. The premium Good Schools Guide guide.co.uk) resurgent arguments that in the 2000s. names are mentioned, and of 17 per cent for men and 16 Andrew Baxter Tables compiled by boys and girls should be The head of one high-per- such tales are unprovable. per cent for women was sig- Commissioning Editor Judith Pizer of Jeff Head taught separately because forming private school in These include the claim that nificantly higher than for Associates (Amersham) they learn in different ways Ð Yorkshire mentions a discus- pupils likely to earn poor children born in 1958 and Steven Bird a point underlined by David sion with other heads in the A-levels continue to be educated at private school, Designer Page one picture (by Daniel Lynch): Fuller, head of Hasmonean 1980s. It concerned how to taught by the school, but says Prof Green Ð particu- Katie Carnie sixth-form girls at Hasmonean High School in Hendon, England's High School, England’s best- treat coasting teachers who, take their exams at a differ- larly for women. He says this Picture Editor highest-performing non-grammar performing non-state gram- not long before retirement, ent centre to avoid depress- reflects better exam results, state school, with Beverley Perin, mar, in a profile in this were not striving as much as ing the school’s statistical rather than an old boy or old head of the girls' school and David For advertising, contact: Fuller, executive head teacher of report. But there are, of they should for their pupils. average. Even if the stories girl network. Maria Tallon on: both the boys' and girls' schools course, exceptions Ð most A head at a school both now are untrue, the telling of He calculates that private FINANCIAL TIMES SATURDAY MARCH 8 2008 3 Top 1,000 Schools school education produces a schools sees individual well-being have increased schools are national assets 7 per cent annual return in schools’ talk of instilling parent demand for places at because of their leadership real terms, although he character as clever niche the Berkshire school. training qualities, what are emphasises the figure is marketing, by institutions It is easy to be too cynical we to think of those qualities approximate. This means if a such as Wellington College about the idea. A termtime when we survey the mess parent spends £100,000 on a and Bedales that do not have stroll round Bedales cer- into which their leadership Top 20 schools child’s education, the child results near the top of the tainly leaves the impression has brought us?” will earn an extra £7,000 each league and need something of a happy place, with a dis- Private schools, it seems, year of working life, after else distinctive Ð though Wel- tinctive clientele of parents are again showing their gen- stripping out inflation. lington has shot up 71 places from the creative professions ius for reinventing them- At the Nuffield Foundation to a fairly impressive 134th, who want a school that offers selves to fit the new demands seminar where Prof Green an alternative to the tradi- of society. outlined his findings, one tional strict boarding school What of the grammar FT Rank 07 FT Rank 06 School Town % of students achieving at AAB in core least subjects head of a leading girls’ pri- education. Indeed, Bedales schools and other institu- Schools with a 11Westminster School Westminster 89 vate school firmly rejected a was set up in 1893 as a delib- tions that appear sometimes gentler approach 22Winchester College Winchester 72 suggestion from the audience erate alternative to standard in rankings otherwise domi- 35Eton College Windsor 78 that it might be better to towards pupils and private school education. nated by private schools? 44St Paul’s Girls’ School Hammersmith 85 send the child to state In Wellington’s case, the They often face the same 59Colchester Royal Gram Sch Colchester 69 school, and use the money staff suffer in co-educational school’s image accusations of hothousing as 68St Paul’s School Barnes 81 saved to build a nest egg for the league tables has changed considerably high-performing private 77North London Collegiate S (IB) Edgware 92 the child. Private schools, from the days when it was schools. 725Radley College Abingdon 59 she explained, provided more set up in 1853 to educate the But the head of a girls’ 96Wycombe Abbey School High Wycombe 79 than an earnings premium and Bedales comes a respect- orphan sons of army officers. school, which is one of the 10 11 James Allen’s Girls’ School Dulwich 75 through academic results Ð able 414th. But so too has the image of highest-achieving grammars, 11 3 Manchester Grammar Sch Manchester 70 they imbued character.