School in ‘wrong’ GCSE results row (From York Press)

The Mount School in ‘wrong’ GCSE results row

10:01am Friday 25th January 2013 in News By Haydn Lewis, haydn.lewis@thepress.co.uk

A PRIVATE girls’ school in York which counts Dame Judi Dench among its former pupils has accused the Department of Education (DoE) of getting their results wrong in the GCSE league tables.

According to data published by the DoE only 32 per cent of pupils at The Mount School on Dalton Terrace got five or more A*-C at GCSE including maths and English when their own figure is 94 per cent.

Jo Hayward, the school’s director of studies, said: “While we all applaud the work of the DoE, the figures they have provided for The Mount School’s GCSE results 2012 are demonstrably wrong. So complete is the discrepancy, that I wonder whether our school is the victim of mistaken identity.

“According to the DoE, 32 per cent of GCSE pupils at The Mount passed five GCSEs with grades between A*-C including maths and English. Not only is this wrong in actual fact, we had 34 per cent of our GCSE pupils achieved five A*s. Of that year group, 94 per cent achieved five A*-C grades. If English and maths are excluded, 100 per cent of our pupils passed five GCSEs at grades A*-C.

“Alarmingly, when I pointed out these very significant errors to the department and asked them to correct it before publication, I was told that they would not review the information.

According to the person who took my call, the DoE took their information from the Independent Schools’ Council. Unfortunately for them, the ISC has a policy of not passing on such information, so the origin and validity of these figures falls into question.”

A DoE spokesperson said: “The results published in the GCSE performances tables for independent schools is based on information provided to the department by schools in the annual school census.

"To ensure that this information is correct, we write to all schools to ask them to check the pupil and results data we hold and to submit any amendment requests necessary. Unfortunately, in this instance, the Mount School failed to check its data. We are now in contact with the school and will update their results if appropriate.”

Elsewhere in York, North and East Yorkshire schools and education chiefs celebrated the exam successes of pupils with the publication of the GCSE and A-level league tables.

Across our area, though, as in other parts of the country, for many schools the number of pupils getting the “gold standard” of five or more A*-C grades at GCSE fell and many have blamed the fiasco over the marking of GCSE English exam papers.