Heads at a clutch of North Herts secondary schools have decided not to publish their overall GCSE and A-level results next month in a bid to celebrate individual success.
The heads at Hitchin Boys’, Hitchin Girls’ and The Priory in Hitchin, Fearnhill and Highfield in Letchworth, and Knights Templar in Baldock say they have major concerns over the accuracy of publishing overall grades on results day.
The schools believe the results do not give a true picture of student achievement because they are ‘recognised as being unvalidated’ and do not take into account any re-marks which are requested.
Another reason cited in the decison-making process is the problems surrounding comparing schools with each other, due to the varying abilities of different year groups.
The group feels that comparison with previous years is ‘impossible’ due to the changing nature of qualifications and assessments throughout the syllabus.
Fearnhill head Jed Whelan said: “Until the official performance tables are released in January, the results declared are not fully accurate.
“It will be much better to focus on celebrating the individual successes of our students in August. That is the most important thing after all.”
Hitchin Boys’ head Martin Brown said: “We believe that exam results are about individual life chances, not statistics, and we want to celebrate those individuals.”
Tim Litchfield at Knights Templar School said: “Verification of our summer exam results takes time and the exams results days are about celebrating the individual student achievements.
“We will publish our headline data on our school website at the beginning of the new academic year.”
In a joint statement, the six headteachers said: “We will comment generally on the achievements of pupils and will celebrate individual success stories.
“It is important to recognise the fantastic successes of our young people, rather than promote a misleading school-to-school comparison.”
An online poll on the Comet’s website asking whether schools should publish the data as a matter of course scored a 69 per cent ‘yes’ vote this week.
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