Good news on UK education

League tables prove nothing. I worked in a school where one year we were at the top end of the league table and the following year we were near to the bottom. The school hadn't changed. The teaching hadn't changed. The cohort of children had changed. The first year we'd had a Year 6 who were particularly bright and so did incredibly well in the SATS. The following year Year 6 had a lot of hardworking strugglers in it and they didn't do so well in. In each case the children did the best they could do but the league table made it look as if something had gone drastically wrong in the school.

I certainly wouldn't put too much faith in them. However they are always quoted when people want to be negative about education in the UK, but strangely enough good news doesn't get reported very often. Having had the opportunity to compare three European education systems at close quarters, I think UK schools are far better than the press and the politicians would have us believe.

Someone is always compiling a global league table of education. The criteria are rarely the same and the order of countries is usually different. The UK generally appears further down than it does in this Pearson one. I suspect that such tables are completely pointless and pretty much inaccurate.