Irish Times School League Table

Mel said:
You're putting words in my mouth to support your argument. I'm not having one. Only leaving cert results count when entering third level.
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The results may speak for themselves, but they certainly don't speak for the quality of the school. They don't measure where the inputs came from. They don't measure the level of the pupils when they started school. They don't measure grinds or parental involvement.

ontour said:
Complainer, You are absolutely correct about what such a league table doesn't tell you. Unfortunately you are equally wrong about the financial standing. There are people from a diverse range of financial backgrounds, like there is in non-fee paying schools. It tells you about parents willingness to invest in education regardless of how easily they can afford it.
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Not true. For many families, the idea of €3k-€5k per child per year, on top of the many existing costs of education is completely unmanageable and unattainable. It is not within their wildest dreams.

Nor should it be - they should be entitled to get the best education for their child in their local public school. And many of them do. One of the ironies of the Celtic Tiger flood to private secondary schools was that some of the public schools were left with great pupil teacher ratios, leaving lots of time for good old-fashioned teaching by good old-fashioned teachers.
 
Complainer said:
Not true. For many families, the idea of €3k-€5k per child per year, on top of the many existing costs of education is completely unmanageable and unattainable. It is not within their wildest dreams.
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What is not true?

  • There are many parents that make significant sacrifices to send their child to a private school.
  • There are children from underprivileged backgrounds that get scholarships to private schools.
  • There are wealthy parents that send their children to public schools.
I am not saying that there are not people that can not afford private schools. I am not saying that private schools are better than public schools.

There are many things that people can not afford and there are basics such as health and education that everyone should have access to. This does not mean that you should target parents who choose to use their earned and taxed money to pay for education. If no state funding was put in to private schools, the fees would rise substantially and would undoubtedly make them the preserve of the rich. Like the process for planning permission, there are ways that can ensure that private schools provide accessibility to those without the financial means to pay the fees.
 
Why is this a public v private debate?
I could probably stretch to a private school - it would actually cost less than childcare has each year so far. Unfortunately where I live the 'top' schools take in children based on relationships to past pupils, and there seem to be a handful of places available to 'new' families.

I didn't even waste my time and energy to apply.

However, among the other possibilities, all public, there are some who rank highly and some who don't. Some move up the list each year, some drop. The one I chose didn't always rate high up on the list, but has moved up consistently over the past 6 to 8 years, and has gained a great reputation. I'm not wealthy, far far from it. But education is a priority for me; I am happy to forgo nights out, holidays and luxuries to pay for extra tuition or whatever is needed. The parents I know who will send children to the same school are of the same mindset. Not many are wealthy, the children are not spoiled with every latest accessory, but they are being supported in getting a good education from where they will have the best choices.
 
Complainer said:
If you're suggesting that these league tables show which schools are better, you're wrong. They don't measure the quality of the school. They don't measure the students abilities when they entered the school, so they can't show how much of their development was down to the school. They don't measure how many students get grinds. They don't measure how many parents have web access or access to other resources. They don't measure the quality of the school. They measure the social and financial standing of the parents of kids attending that school
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I actually agree with all of this. However, the problem is that none of the items you have listed here are measured by anyone. With such an absence of information, parents (rightly) use the information they have which are the league tables. If you assume child A and child B have the similiar intellect and background, then if child A goes to a "top" school and child B to "bottom" school as per the leagues tables, then on average you would expect child A to get more points.

I agree that points are not the be all and end all, but as long as LC points are the measure used to gain access to 3rd level and the therefore the official measure of education, then they are the top but not only priority for both students and parents.

As for the social standing on the behalf of parents..I agree. A lot of people send their children to private schools so they can try and impress their friends. But then again, they could spend their money on worse things.

Finally, the "top" schools as per the league tables tend to be "good" schools by almost any other measure also. This goes for both the private and public ones.
 
Approximately 95% of my year went to university, placing the school at the top of the league tables for that particular year. The average Leaving Certificate result in our year was 510 points. These are certainly impressive statistics, but they don't tell the full story.

300 people sat the entrance exam in 6th class. Of those 300, the top 60 candidates were invited back for interview. Of those 60, 30 were invited to attend the school. In order to attend the school, the students' parents had to be in a position to pay the substantial fees. Two places were made available for students whose parents couldn't afford the fees (on the basis of those students' academic ability).

What goes on in these schools is nothing more than selective breeding. By harvesting kids with the best chance of doing well academically (i.e. intelligent kids from middle to upper middle class backgrounds), it's inevitable that the schools will top the league tables.
 
ontour said:
There are people from a diverse range of financial backgrounds, like there is in non-fee paying schools. It tells you about parents willingness to invest in education regardless of how easily they can afford it.
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Am I the only person that finds it depressing that the assumption is that if parents who hypothetically could afford to choose not to send their children to fee-paying schools, they are not willing to 'invest in education'?

My parents could probably, if pushed, paid the necessary fees to send me to a private school. However, they, like many others, objected on principle to a two tier education system and believed strongly in public education. They also made the judgement - not entirely correctly in my opinion - that the publicly funded school that was available for me to attend was of a sufficiently good academic standard to allow me to reach my potential. They invested financially, logistically and with their time in all sorts of ways to support the type of education they wanted for me from the moment I was born until the moment I left college. I am, and will continue, to do the same for my own children, whether or not I choose or am in a position to pay for private secondary school education for them!
 
camel said:
Oh come on, of course environment has a big role to play. The school itself is very important, peers, teacher quality, equipment, ambition, etc.
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What I was trying to say was that it does not matter if your child goes to a fee paying school or a bog standard community school. If your child has the ability and the parental support school does not matter... both my children had an irish teacher for leaving cert who said openly to them that he was only doing his time for his pension....what do you mean by equipment.. and ambition... do you mean ambition of the school... most schools attach themselves to the coat tails of the bright and ambitious pupils. By the way I could not say a bad word about the school my children went to... they did well out of it but I feel if there had not been encouragement from us their parents it would have been a different story and I dont mean us as pushy parents... they were left their own devices as to study etc but were encouraged to study.
 
mammyof2 said:
They invested financially, logistically and with their time in all sorts of ways to support the type of education they wanted for me from the moment I was born until the moment I left college.
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Exactly, sending your child to a private school is only one way a parent may choose to invest in their child's education and as I have pointed out this may be of benefit to some children and a hindrance to others.

Parents invest in lots of ways, for example, I know a lot of parents who drive their children to a school in the next town because that school has a better choice of subjects and better facilities. It can be equally said that the opportunity to do this is not available to all parents as they may not have the time or finances to transport their child on a daily basis.

Trying to find the lowest common denominator in the name of equality does not serve society or the economy well.
 
My parents sent my sister to a private school because they felt she would benefit from smaller classes and myself and my brother to a public school because we were happy there and were able to keep up in a big class. All three of us have degrees because my parents were able to guage the type of school that would suit us and were able (with difficulty) to pay the fees for private education where necessary.

However, I would never judge a school simply by the number of its students who go on to university. If I had a very creative child I would want a school that would offer a high standard of teaching in Art or English or a very active drama department. If I had a non academic child who was brilliant at sports I would want a school that was successful in that area.
There are so many other ways to measure how your child will develop in a particular school. Not every child is suited to University.
 
ontour said:
Trying to find the lowest common denominator in the name of equality does not serve society or the economy well.
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Is this meant to imply that the State schools should not be expected to provide a decent level of education for all?
 
Where these league tables come into their own is where you have a number of schools in the same area, who's students are almost indentical in terms of socio-economic background. In my area, there is one particular school that has ranked significantly lower than the average and another that ranks significantly higher. Prior to the publication of league tables, the parents in the area would not have been able to differentiate between the two. All schools tell applying parents that their students do well and go onto third level etc. etc., but its difficult to verify without data. These league tables have been useful in slaying some myths about various schools performances in my area.
 
Complainer said:
Is this meant to imply that the State schools should not be expected to provide a decent level of education for all?
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No, not true, you are endeavouring to read between the lines rather than take what I said at face value.

I believe the state should provide a much higher level of education than it does now. If I had my way I would divert half of what is currently spent on child benefit in to the schools. Schools would provide meals for the students and would have after school activities including sports, further education etc.
If some schools had to be amalgamated to make this practical, so be it. Make Child Benefit work for children!
 
csirl said:
These league tables have been useful in slaying some myths about various schools performances in my area.
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Unfortunately, they have perpetuated the myth that 'performance' equates to students getting places in universities.

ontour said:
No, not true, you are endeavouring to read between the lines rather than take what I said at face value.

I believe the state should provide a much higher level of education than it does now. If I had my way I would divert half of what is currently spent on child benefit in to the schools. Schools would provide meals for the students and would have after school activities including sports, further education etc.
If some schools had to be amalgamated to make this practical, so be it. Make Child Benefit work for children!
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Sorry if I misunderstood. I wasn't sure what was meant by your 'lowest common denominator' report, and to be honest, I'm still not sure.
 
Mel said:
Thanks for this; do you by any chance know if it is an older list, or the latest? It looks similar to what I've seen before. It's based on 2008/2009 results, but maybe there is a delay in releasing the statistics?
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Hi Mel,

Yes, I don't see 2009/2010 results on the site - they were in the paper a few weeks back alright. I have this at home - if there's a particular school you are interested in PM me and I'll dig out the info.

Here's a summary by region of the top schools for the past 7 years.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00681/Ireland_s_top_secon_681534a.pdf

Interesting to note the consistency of some schools. If sending your children to university is your number 1 priority then I think these tables are as good as we have. If not, then the Dep needs to get its thumb out to report on schools with the best arts/crafts/sports etc facilities. Interesting that a lot of the fee paying schools have a deep history in sports, granted for a narrow selection of sports...then again that's probably true of all schools.
 
Thirsty said:
1. Inaccuracy
In previous years (and I have little reason to believe this year is any different) these so called lists were inaccurate, didn't count those who went to private colleges (such as the Royal College of Surgeons), didn't count those who went to Universities abroad and didn't count those who deferred their 3rd level place.
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I don't have access to the Irish Times league table, but the Sunday Times League Table here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00681/The_top_400_seconda_681535a.pdf

States:

These are the top 400 schools ranked by the average proportion of pupils gaining places in autumn 2008 and 2009 at one of the nine
universities on the island of Ireland, main teacher training colleges, Royal College of Surgeons, National College of Art and Design or any
English,Welsh or Scottish university or equivalent.
So they may be a better guide than the Irish Times tables.
 
Complainer said:
...For many families, the idea of €3k-€5k per child per year, on top of the many existing costs of education is completely unmanageable and unattainable. It is not within their wildest dreams.

Nor should it be - they should be entitled to get the best education for their child in their local public school. And many of them do. One of the ironies of the Celtic Tiger flood to private secondary schools was that some of the public schools were left with great pupil teacher ratios, leaving lots of time for good old-fashioned teaching by good old-fashioned teachers.
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23 of the top 50 schools as measured by % going to 3rd level by the Sunday Times list for 2008/2009 are public schools, so there is plenty good schools available for people who cannot afford private schools. Granted, if you are hell-bent on sending your children to the best schools by this measure, there are only 2 public schools in the top 10....http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00681/The_top_400_seconda_681535a.pdf
 
BazFitz said:
Approximately 95% of my year went to university, placing the school at the top of the league tables for that particular year. The average Leaving Certificate result in our year was 510 points. These are certainly impressive statistics, but they don't tell the full story.

300 people sat the entrance exam in 6th class. Of those 300, the top 60 candidates were invited back for interview. Of those 60, 30 were invited to attend the school. In order to attend the school, the students' parents had to be in a position to pay the substantial fees. Two places were made available for students whose parents couldn't afford the fees (on the basis of those students' academic ability).

What goes on in these schools is nothing more than selective breeding. By harvesting kids with the best chance of doing well academically (i.e. intelligent kids from middle to upper middle class backgrounds), it's inevitable that the schools will top the league tables.
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I find this story refreshing actually...(whether private schools are good/bad is a different discussion),

There are plenty private schools in Dublin but to get into this one you have to be smart. It sounds like a completely open competition to those who can meet the fees and isn't based on whether your siblings/parents/grand parents went to the school as is quite common in private schools.
 
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