Whilst the DFe data is not perfect it's a lot more granular than popular league tables such as the Times Best-Schools-league-table ( which lot's of other web sites just copy ). In essence, the Dfe data allows a more reasonable and nuanced like-for-like comparison.
You are right to point out that not all A-level subjects count in the AAB% measure. Mea culpa - perhaps I should have mentioned that for clarity also. However, basically the same thing applies at QE boys: In 2024, 10 students did Art & Design (fine Art), 18 did Design and technology and 41 did Economics. Many of those students would also not be included in the AAB% measure for QE boys. Moreover, the 157 out of 194 figure I quoted for Westminster is for the number of students with 3 or more A-levels. It's this figure which is critical for me. As someone with a experience directly of Westminster, are you saying this Dfe reported figure is basically wrong ?
As I state above - different people will reach different conclusions if they are looking at different metrics and factors and of course league tables only tell part of the picture. My issue is that people are often going along with headline figures which I think are, in some cases, misleading or don't tell a full enough picture.
Just to be clear in case you think I have something against Westminster. Looking at the 'offers from the top elite universities' metric, for example, it looks like Westminster is considerably better than QE boys and probably in the top 3 in the country. This is an example of where private schools currently have a clear advantage over state schools.
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The dataset is incomplete. If we look at the Westminster school website itself, it gives further details. 201 pupils sat 777 A levels - this is an average of 3.86 per pupil. Essentially we can gather that upto 164 sat 4 levels and at least 5 pupils sat 5 A-levels. It says 89 of 201 pupils obtained 3 A* (44% of total) 49 of whom obtained 4 A* (24% of total) and 5 with 5 A* (2.5% of total). No one sits just 2 A levels. The assumption that 20% of pupils sit less than 3 A levels is incorrect. I am sure the results for QEB will also be underestimated, however a quick look at their website shows 173 pupils sat 582 A-levels - an average of 3.36 per pupil. On their website, it says nearly a quarter of their students obtained straight A* - which would be up to 43 students.
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My apologies, It appears you are correct. There is indeed a big discrepancy between the Dfe data currently available on it's web site and the data on the Westminster School web site. Consequently my comparison between the Westminster and QE boys does indeed looks flawed
Comparing the data sets it looks like the Dfe is missing data* which is worrying as it's the official government school stats. How many other schools does this apply to? If I can work out where / what the missing data is, or what my incorrect assumptions are, I'll report back.
In the meanwhile my apologies If I have mislead anyone. Is there an egg on face emoji ?
* - drilling down and looking in detail at the subjects taken according to the Dfe, no students at Westminster took A-level Physics, Chemistry or Biology which clearly does not look right !!
Statistics: Posted by YetAnotherDad — Thu Mar 06, 2025 1:17 am