New Government league tables confirm QE’s position as one of the country’s leading schools for the progress made by its pupils.
The new tables are based on the Government’s preferred Progress 8 measure, which shows the improvements made by children across eight key subjects between the end of primary school and GCSE.
For the second consecutive year, Queen Elizabeth’s School’s Progress 8 score of 1.16 tops the table of all boys’ grammar schools. QE is also 12th overall out of all schools and colleges in England.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “QE has become well known for consistently producing GCSE and A-level results that are among the very best in the country across both the state and the independent sectors.
“As we are a selective school at which there is great competition for places, our intake in Year 7 is made up of very bright boys. However, as these tables conclusively show, that is not the whole story: we certainly do not ‘coast’, riding on the natural talent of our pupils. On the contrary, our excellent, inspirational teaching combined with a meticulous approach to all aspects of education mean that we are able to maximise the very considerable potential of our boys.”
In 2017, 100% of QE’s 181 Year 11 pupils achieved grade 5 or above in their English and Mathematics GCSEs and 100% achieved the Government’s English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure, which requires an A*–C pass (or grade 4) in English, Mathematics, History or Geography, the sciences and a language. Of the 11 schools ahead of QE in the Progress 8 league table, only one – The Tiffin Girls’ School in Kingston upon Thames – matched the first figure and none had an EBacc figure as high as QE’s. Nationally, this year’s figures reveal an overall drop in EBacc attainment from 24.5% last year to 23.5% in 2017.
Newly adjusted figures for this summer’s GCSE results at QE reveal that in addition to the 100% pass rate for GCSE, 70.9% of the examinations taken were awarded A* grades (or its equivalent, grades 8 and 9 in the new numerical grading system used for English and Mathematics). The Mathematics results were particularly noteworthy: 70% of Year 11 achie ved the new, highest-possible grade of 9 in the subject, with 96% getting grades 8 or 9 (equivalent to A*) and all 181 boys achieving grades 7-9 (equivalent to A*and A).