Warwick’s Myton School has changed its approach to communicating results

Pupils at Myton School celebrating their GCSE results last year.

Headteacher Paul McIntyre and school governors have decided to follow a growing trend across the country, whereby on examination results days, schools will comment on student performance but not provide details of “unverified whole cohort results”.

Mr McIntyre said: “Results are extremely provisional; while individually students will probably have some confidence in their results, the overall school cohort results fluctuate and this can be misleading.

“The pressure on schools to ‘spin’ their results adds little to parents’ and the community’s perception of schools. Again this can be misleading and problematic: results are published on the school website later in September and we have more confidence in these as a whole cohort result.”

Mr McIntyre also feels that headline figures can be inaccurate, as there are several measures on which results are formed and they cannot all be reported on results day.

He added: “The chair of governors, myself and the leadership team at Myton feel that we wish to support other state schools locally. We are committed to supporting them with their drive on standards, as they are supportive of ours - it is a strength of the state comprehensive and inclusive system.

“We always encourage parents who are interested in places at Myton to visit other state schools locally. We are fortunate that we have great state schools in Warwick and Leamington and the best way to judge them is to visit, listen and experience what they have to offer.

“We are mindful that the first school to do this may well be suspected of not publishing whole cohort results because ‘results are not very good’. So, as we don’t yet know the results, although we are expecting them to be very good, we are publishing our plans now and explaining our reasons.”

See the letters page for Mr McIntyre’s full statement.