Thursday 21 August 2014

GCSE FIGURES SLUMP FOR 6TH YEAR RUNNING

Figures from Hampstead GCSE Results Day last Thursday showed that GCSE Results had slumped in all areas for the first time in five years, according to local paper the Ham & High.

Results up on their website showed that the number of A*-A's had decreased significantly by 12%, from 27% in 2013 to 15% this year. Equally, the percentage of 5A*-C's (including Ingrish and Maths) had gone from 63% to 51%, meaning just over half the percentage of students passed. This showed again a 12% fall in those passing GCSE's, leaving 49% of GCSE Results underwhelming, making it the lowest results since before 2008, and before the now depleted 5 Year Trend. E-Baccalaureate results (if anyone even cares) also took a hit at Hampstead, going from a 30% pass rate last year to 27% this year.

In response to this fall in results, the Head, Jacques Szomeonetakemeseriouslykowski, commented: "A lot of headteachers around the country will be quite cross about what’s happened this year. [...] The course has been changed halfway through – that’s no way to run an education service. This year’s results can’t be compared to any other year, that’s for certain.” Now, most of what the Head said was very accurate, and he has every right to be just as annoyed about the rules on qualifications changing as the students were undertaking them, although probably for the wrong reasons, as well as leveling the accusation at the current government that what had happened was 'no way to run an education system', however, we find it slightly one-sided that it's 'certain' that 'this year's results can't be compared to any other year', because it would look very poor on the school's behalf, it would be a definite end to the 5 Year Trend and the Head's glory period, but if we had a rise in grades, and were once again 'bucking the national trend' (excuse the double entendre), 2014's results would become very comparable.

"can't be compared with any other year" - just did. You're not gonna like it, sir, it's got what we would call a 'negative
gradient'. And 'negative' anything never plays well.
The fact that the Head is excluding this year's results just shines a light on the Orwellian ways the school has with dealing with bad press, things that make them look bad and anything that contravenes their deluded ideas that they somehow have a "perfect" school.

With this year's banners in the rubbish bin, more news about A-Levels came in the form of a League Table (you would think the Head would be loving a League Table, but this specific one he won't like) in the centre of this week's Ham & High, where Hampstead ranked 16th of all 19 local schools, and of those it was 10th out of all the local state schools; top 2% of 6th Forms my arse.

In the same newspaper, in the education insert, there was featured not one but two adverts for Hampstead School, one page after the other. Intelligent readers will instantly recognise this is stupid in something that people read. Many frequent readers will know our reservations about the school advertising, but it seems wasteful and nigh-on insensitive to publish duplicate adverts a day after many students went home unhappy. That £2464.40, that was spent on a half-page and similar full-page, that bears a resemblance (see below) to those that featured in An Unwavering Journey to Dismay, could have easily been reconstituted into money for retakes.

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