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**Wyatt Earp** · 08-01-2010, 17:04

Schools closed again

The trouble with my job is that I can easily do about 80% of it at home anyway, as long as I have wireless. Which is a big convenience most of the time, but does tend to mean nothing stops for snow or strike.

**Bored Of Education** · 08-01-2010, 18:12

Schools closed again

I phoned up the boy's school on Wednesday and the staff had made it in only for the council to have made a blanket announcement saying that all schools were shut.

I did offer to send him in for them to teach but they declined my kind thought

Today, the schools reopened even thought conditions were no different from yesterday

**rick derris** · 08-01-2010, 19:01

Schools closed again

I went in to school today. A foot deep all around the site.

I had to call all of my GCSE class to give them some good and bad news.

The good being school may well be closed again Monday, the bad being they have to come in for an exam. Amazing how many had forgotten about the exam, plus I am slightly taken aback by how many of them I woke up at 11 45 ish

**Reed John** · 08-01-2010, 21:39

Schools closed again

**Purves Grundy** · 10-01-2010, 14:11

Schools closed again

I learned last night that one of the reasons head teachers are so eager to close schools right now is because of league tables. If all is well and the school opens, but half the kids don't make it in, then it fucks up their stats on unauthorised absences. Much safer just to close down.

Another reason to love league tables.

**rick derris** · 10-01-2010, 18:31

Schools closed again

There is an element of truth in that, not so much league tables but OFSTED criteria who want attendance above 92%. So opening in heavy snow when attendance is going to be a little over 50% does create quite a headache.

Its a factor, certainly not a primary factor when deciding whether to close or not. We look like we are open tomorrow but probably for year 11 and post 16 only.

I get and totally agree where you are coming from re league tables purves

**Tubby Isaacs** · 10-01-2010, 18:46

Schools closed again

Every thread seems to be about league tables at the moment. Are you saying attendance figures should be kept secret? I can't see any justification for that at all.

With or without league tables, parents are going to work out what a good attendance figure is.

**rick derris** · 10-01-2010, 18:53

Schools closed again

It's a bit more than that, when a school is OFSTED inspected they are graded on four areas. An attendance lower than 92% can result in unsatisfactory

A school recently failed its OFSTED inspections as its fences were not high enough

**Tubby Isaacs** · 10-01-2010, 19:01

Schools closed again

I was picking up on your league tables remark, rather than the OFSTED stuff. Their fallibility isn't in question.

I've said the same thing across a few threads. I can see that league tables encourage people all applying for a small number of academically successful schools, who get to select pupils and become more academically successful. And that it doesn't mean that teachers there are any better than the teachers who get disadvantaged kids a few GCSEs. It's just sometimes it seems people are arguing for that info not to be made public. I don't think you can deny information like that.

That's not intended to be putting words into your mouth at all, it's just I'm not clear where progressives in general stand.

I'd focus more on admissions in the debate. That could still be by lottery, and equitable, even with league tables around.

**Anton Gramscescu** · 11-01-2010, 04:38

Schools closed again

There is a difference between indicators and league tables. There's a lot of good reasons why governments should publish data on indicators (with appropriate detailing of the limitations of each indicator), but almost none why they'd want to publish multi-indicator league tables which make explicit judgements about which indicators matter most.

Granted, any idiot can come along and make a league table out of any clutch of published indicator - but leave that nonsense to the private sector. The government's job is to ensure some degree of transparency in the system and that's it.

**Reed John** · 11-01-2010, 06:03

Schools closed again

Granted, any idiot can come along and make a league table out of any clutch of published indicator - but leave that nonsense to the private sector. The government's job is to ensure some degree of transparency in the system and that's it.

Well said. Applies to hospitals and all sorts of other types of institutions as well.

It's interesting, I think, that you all call these things league tables whereas we usually refer to stuff like the USNews rankings as just "rankings" or "poll." Likewise, you all are accustomed to ootball/cricket/rugby league tables whereas we are used to college football and basketball rankings/polls.

School "league tables" are a lot more like the AP College Football Rankings, with all of it's problems and biases, than a true league table.

**Anton Gramscescu** · 11-01-2010, 06:33

Schools closed again

You're absolutely right about the sports provenance of the lingo, Reed. Although US college rankings far predate the NCAA rankings - the earliest ones date from about 1902.

Incidentally, though - league tables are rankings, but not all rankings are league tables. League tables imply that various elements are being combined to give a single ordinal position (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc). But some rankings - especially on-line rankings - can be created in such a way that multiple tables are possible by giving users a choice of which indicators they want to use to create comparisons - in a sense, they can become "individualized rankings".

**Tubby Isaacs** · 11-01-2010, 17:53

Schools closed again

Peter Preston's steamed into Southwark this morning for closing four times as many schools as next door Lambeth.

I'd have thought Lambeth had the more reason to fear Ofsted attendance criteria, if anything.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/10/schools-snow-indecision-ed-balls

I don't understand what Ed Balls was supposed to have done.

**Tubby Isaacs** · 11-01-2010, 17:55

Schools closed again

Antonio Gramsci wrote:

You're absolutely right about the sports provenance of the lingo, Reed. Although US college rankings far predate the NCAA rankings - the earliest ones date from about 1902.

Incidentally, though - league tables are rankings, but not all rankings are league tables. League tables imply that various elements are being combined to give a single ordinal position (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc). But some rankings - especially on-line rankings - can be created in such a way that multiple tables are possible by giving users a choice of which indicators they want to use to create comparisons - in a sense, they can become "individualized rankings".

How far do they vary though? A school where lots of kids take unauthorised absences is generally going to get lower exam grades, isn't it? I'm not sure what other criteria are popular with most parents.

**Reed John** · 11-01-2010, 18:00

Schools closed again

That's right. There were media rankings - for football, at least; I don't know about any other sports - long before the NCAA even existed. And now we're stuck with that crappy system forever, apparently.

A league table in soccer is based on very transparent and agreed upon metrics. Wins are worth three points, etc. I suppose some people could make their own league table based on only two points for a win, or whatever, but not many people would want to do that.

The school league tables or rankings are based on a ton of different data fields. As you said, good arguments can be made for weighting the different components in a lot of different ways, so it could be individualized, but some of the measures like "reputation," are self-fulfilling and not very transparent, and its not always at all clear how certain metrics relate to the overall quality of education that a particular student will get from there.

Like if one school has an average attendance of 96% and another has 86%, is the first one necessarily better? I don't see how it could be- based just on that one number, but the rankings would indicate that it is. They're like "surrogate endpoints" without a clear connection to "clinical end points." There may be a connection, but it's probably not linear.

**Anton Gramscescu** · 11-01-2010, 18:04

Schools closed again

Tubby - Depends on the indicators you choose to measure, I suppose. Ideally, you have a set where they don't automatically co-variate, though as you note that might not jive with the indicators parents (rightly or wrongly).

In the rankings my company runs, we use various sets of student satisfaction indicators along with some more "hard" data on things like research output. There are a number of schools that come up looking poorly no matter which indicators you pick, but the choice of indicator can significantly alter which institution comes out "top". So, lots of possible "best schools" depending on what matters to you, but not "prizes for all" (which is probably about right).

**Tubby Isaacs** · 11-01-2010, 18:10

Schools closed again

When you say "prizes for all", are you consciously evoking OTF favourite Melanie Phillips?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Must-Have-Prizes-Melanie-Phillips/dp/0751522740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263233391&sr=8-1

Or are you both quoting the same source?

**Anton Gramscescu** · 11-01-2010, 18:12

Schools closed again

No, not consciously. It's a fairly common phrase, isn't it?

**Tubby Isaacs** · 11-01-2010, 18:16

Schools closed again

Yeah, I just read too much into your quotation marks.

There is, I presume, a locus classicus she picked up on.

**Wyatt Earp** · 11-01-2010, 18:22

Schools closed again

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

Yeah, I just read too much into your quotation marks.

There is, I presume, a locus classicus she picked up on.

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, innit. The Caucus Race.

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