There's more to our school than just the league tables

The headteacher, with one of the toughest jobs in Worcester, has spent three years trying to get truancy down and results up.

The trouble is, the bad news never seems to end. In the space of two days last week, Elgar Technology College came bottom of Worcestershire's GCSE league table and then was named and shamed by the Government as having one of the biggest truancy problems in the country.

But Mr James remains unbowed. Not because he believes the Bilford Road school cannot do better, but because he is convinced league tables do not tell the whole story.

"The league tables are simplistic and education is complex," he says.

"It's wrong to say a certain school is 'good' because they are getting the higher grades.

"The better schools are often the ones with the lower grades."

Elgar's catchment area includes parts of the city where high academic achievement, perhaps even school attendance, has not always been seen as a priority by some. That's what Mr James is battling against.

"I would acknowledge that some parts of the community we serve don't perceive there is a need to stay in education," he says. "I won't deny there are some children at our school that find attending school difficult. And I won't deny we have some children who come from families that don't value school as highly as they should."

He is turning that around by reaching out into the community, visiting parents so they see school "is not a threatening place to be" and building up links with local primary schools.

Success cannot be judged overnight but, where up to 12 per cent of pupils were playing truant three years ago, it is now down to a hardcore of half of one per cent.

"Our sports facilities are always full now, used by the community. This is the way of getting families on board and people see the good things we are doing.

"This is a long-term project. It's a never-ending road."

The worry for many in education is that, with increased choice, the 'good' schools will get better and attract better pupils while the others, in less well-off areas, are left behind.

The Government's White Paper has paved the way for parents to choose much more easily their children's school. It's no secret that people like Mr James fear parents will see the league tables in the paper and decide to send their children to, say Bishop Perowne, instead of Elgar.

"The implication of the White Paper concerning increased choice will just add to this tension in the city if it's not managed properly," says Mr James.

"Parents are discerning customers these days but sometimes there are criticisms simply because of perception. Sometimes I think my children, who go to another school, don't get enough homework, but I don't just phone the school to complain straight away.

"But here, some people think, it's Elgar, it must be wrong."

And with so much significance being placed on league tables, the negativity can filter down.

"We have now got this system that encourages children to go to certain schools because one school is perceived as good and one bad.

"Tables have created the culture where I hear the children at my school actually saying, 'I'm useless because I go to Elgar and we're failing.'

"This is a terrible thing to hear. Thankfully I hear it a lot less than I did three years ago.

"It's the same perception with staff. Recruiting staff is twice as hard because of the perception that this is not a good school to be in.

"The ones who are here now, some who have been here many years, love working here but are sometimes felt sorry for by staff in other schools, as if they are the poorer neighbours, the poor cousin down the road.

"In education we are recognised as being one of the best schools in what we do but unfortunately these do not come with concrete examples to put in league tables."

Nevertheless, whether teachers like it or not, parents do make decisions based on league tables. There in black and white last week the table showed that only one in five Elgar students left last year with five GCSEs above grade C.

"Any figure like that is disappointing," admits Mr James.

"We were anticipating these sorts of results.

"We are never complacent, that's the last thing we will be, and, if there is one good thing about the tables, it makes us far more acutely aware of what we have to work on."

There is good news. Truancy has been slashed.

A quarter of Year 11s return to do more GCSEs. Pupils are successfully getting vocational qualifications and continuing to attend college thanks to the flexibility of the curriculum.

Of the 16 Worcester pupils who became members of the Gifted and Talented Youth Academy, 14 are from Elgar.

Also, tellingly, permanent exclusions are the lowest in Worcester. Mr James is committed to working with the pupils he is given, no matter how challenging they are.

"I had a choice about what to do when I came here and how I saw the school going," he says. "My conclusion was that it had to be a school that served this community, knowing the children we have got here.

"The community is realising that if you don't stay in education until 16, your life choices fall away.

"We are working so hard and some children are getting the maximum GCSEs for them. Some simply will not get five at A* to C."

Next time parents look at league tables in a newspaper, headteachers like Mr James hope they will understand that aiming for the best ranking is not the be-all and end-all.

"It would be a fruitless task," he says. "Tables don't do what we do, which is focus on individuals."