School league tables could be unreliable, research shows
Schools may not be as successful as league tables suggest, following data released from Education DataLab.
The information shows that schools would be less successful if students who had left before sitting their GCSEs were taken into account in the tables.
According to the data released by the education research firm, about 20,000 secondary students left school before sitting their exams.
This suggests that if the students had remained, some schools would not have graded as high in the official league tables.
The statistics come from 2,901 state schools in England over the course of four years and shows that the biggest shift on the tables come from 62 schools in London.
At the moment, the league tables are calculated by how many pupils are registered at the school in the January of their last year.
However, students could later leave school for a number of reasons, such as being expelled or moving house, which could then make the tables inaccurate.
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