Whilst most parents / students look at the most recent Sheffield school league table in making their secondary school choices, however these can from time to time prove highly misleading as many of Sheffield's 37 Secondary schools / Academies for whatever reason exhibit volatility in performance from year to year therefore a currently high ranking school may not mean that the same level of performance will continue for subsequent years as it may have been subject to special intervention and circumstances, therefore a much better methodology in the rating of schools is evaluation in terms of trend and deviations against trend.

The following graph represents Sheffield's Top 15 Secondary schools out of a total of 37 rated in terms of consistency in attaining high rankings in the school league tables from 2001 to 2015.

As expected the the top two rates schools are taken by Independent schools, with the third by the Catholic faith school. Whilst Silverdale continues to rank as as Sheffield's best state school in terms of consistency of trend, closely followed by Tapton Academy in 4th place despite scoring higher than Silverdale for 2015 (82 against 75) due to higher volatility.

The next state school, King Ecgbert ranks 7th in this list, and along with Bradfield and High Storrs appear to be undergoing a significant deviation from trend by suffering very significant drops in performance, and apart from Meadowhead which registered a small improvement, the next 4 secondary schools also recorded a drop in performance levels, a sharp reversal of their performance improvements of 2014. Which leaves Firvale Academy just managing to register on this table in 15th place. Whilst the rest of Sheffield's secondary scored below 50% for achieving 5+ GCSE A-C grade passes, with Al-Mahad-Al-Islami 28% and Chaucer 26% towards the bottom.

Overall 2015 was a bad year for Sheffield's schools with only the top 2 state schools maintaining or improving in their GCSE results (Silverdale and Tapton).

The primary reason why many of Sheffield's best or better schools suffered a drop in performance during 2015 is probably the initial stages of consequences of taking an increasing intake of out of catchment area children each year, which implies to expect a persistent trend of worsening results for several years to come.

By Adnaan Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any trading losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors before engaging in any trading activities.

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