Mike Baker on the debate about 'added value'

There are still complaints from some schools that the tables do not properly reflect the effort they put in to bringing on children who begin their secondary schooling with a less than promising academic record and outlook.

The government dropped its planned measure of this 'added value' following complaints from schools with good GCSE results, whose pupils were already doing well early on - so showing no apparent improvement.

Chris Woodhead: backs publication

The government remains committed to finding a way to reflect improvement.

The Chief Inspector of Schools in England, Chris Woodhead, told BBC News: "What we need is reliable data from different stages of a child's school career, so that the value that later school adds to a child's academic development can be calculated.

"We don't have that data yet."

Chris Woodhead: "The tables are a good thing"

But teachers' unions remain hostile to the publication of the data, with accusations that the process of publishing schools' results, allowing the news media to produce league tables, is "fundamentally flawed" and still favours "selective schools in leafy glades".

Among the state schools named in the performance tables as showing the most improvement are Bacon's College, a technology college in Southwark, south London and the London Oratory School, attended by the children of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

Girls' schools do very well in the GCSE results lists

In this year's list of education authorities, there is once again a concentration of successful authorities in outer London and its commuter belt. While the tiny Isles of Scilly heads the table, it is followed by Buckinghamshire, Kingston-upon-Thames, Sutton, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Barnet.

At the bottom of the local authority table are Kingston-upon-Hull, Knowsley, Islington, City of Nottingham, Hackney and Haringey - a predominance of Labour-run authorities that was seized upon by the Conservatives as evidence of the failure of the government's education policies.

The Shadow Schools Minister, Theresa May, said that "this is the Labour reality in education locally. Buckinghamshire is the first major authority in the table - it is Conservative controlled and has grammar schools".

Charles Clarke welcomes reduction in numbers of unqualified school leavers

The Liberal Democrats' education spokesman, Don Foster, said the tables did not provide the information that parents needed, "such as the different spending per pupil by local education authorities, the individual teacher recruitment problems and differing socio-economic factors in different schools".

The overall figures for exam performance, released earlier this year, show a slight improvement in results. The Schools Minister, Charles Clarke, said he was "particularly encouraged that there has been a significant reduction in the numbers of pupils leaving school without any qualification".

According to this year's tables, more pupils achieved higher grades than last year, with the proportion of pupils gaining five or more GCSEs grades A* to C rising by 1.2% to 46.3%. The number of pupils gaining at least one qualification rose by almost 1% to 93.4%.

The national average for pupils gaining five or more GCSEs grades A* to C includes the widest possible range of individual school results - from the minimum of 0% at Middleton Park High School, Leeds to a maximum 100% at over 100 schools.

Truancy rate increases

But despite a government initiative to cut truancy by a third by 2002, the average truancy figure for state schools continued to rise - by 0.1% to 1.1%.

However there were wide regional variations on pupils missing school - with the education authorities with the poorest records on truancy, Kingston-upon-Hull and City of Nottingham, registering rates of 3.7%.

Girls once again have outperformed boys, with 51.5% achieving five or more grades A* to C at GCSE, compared to 41.3% for boys.

Among the state schools achieving 100% of its pupils getting five good GCSEs, girls schools are prominent, including Townley Grammar School for Girls, Bexleyheath in Kent and Bournemouth School for Girls, Dorset.

However in this top group of schools, there are no non-selective comprehensives, with the majority being independent schools, followed by grant-maintained and grammar schools. There is also a predominance of single-sex schools among the schools with 100% records.

Unions oppose league tables

Despite the government's emphasis on school improvement, the largest teachers' union, the National Union of Teachers, remains dismissive of their fairness.

General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, David Hart

School tables, a spokesperson for the NUT said, were "fundamentally flawed and any attempts at elaboration won't put that right. Every year they are predictable.

"Top of the list will be selective schools in leafy glades and at the bottom will be schools attempting to overcome the social problems that beset the communities they serve."

Rather than reforming the tables, the NUT argues the government would be "better off throwing them away".

The General Secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, John Dunford, also attacked the league tables, claiming they were "inherently unfair" as they "gave the impression that they are comparing like with like, when schools start from very different situations".

The use of five good GCSEs as a benchmark was criticised by David Hart, General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, who said that this was "an unreliable and unfair indicator of schools' achievements".

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