Queen Elizabeth’s School once again heads the influential Sunday Times Parent Power survey as the country’s top state school.
As Alastair McCall, editor of Parent Power, points out, QE has now “occupied the top spot for five of the past seven years”.
He also highlighted the “remarkable consistency” of two London schools – QE and its independent sector counterpart, St Paul’s Girls’ School – in maintaining their positions at the top of their respective league tables. If both state and independent league tables were combined, QE’s results would place it squarely among the handful of élite independent schools.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “Our now-regular appearance at the top of the Parent Power table is testament to the outstanding teaching of my colleagues, to the sustained hard work of our pupils and to our unceasing determination to achieve excellence in all areas of School life.
“I would say that our academic performance, combined with our superlative extra-curricular activities, our careful pastoral support and our commitment to ensuring Elizabethans go on to make significant contributions to wider society, mean that QE is not only remarkably consistent, but consistently remarkable, too.”
With this year’s A-level and GCSE examinations cancelled because of Covid-19, the Parent Power league tables were based on 2019 results, but the 2020 statistics were, in fact, even better than the previous year’s, with a record 99.6% A*–B pass rate and a 9.3% increase in the number of A-levels awarded an A* grade to 54.6%, which is another School record.
The announcement of the Parent Power results comes only a few weeks after the Good Schools Guide (GSG) praised QE highly in its latest report, concluding that it provided “one of the most inspiring learning environments we’ve ever come across”.
The GSG reviewers noted, too, that when the national coronavirus crisis struck in the spring, QE had not only been quick to provide boys with extensive online education, but had also progressively improved what it offered. The School rapidly learned how best to use IT to offer stimulating lessons alongside interesting extra-curricular activities and strong pastoral support in the unprecedented situation of a national lockdown.
Mr Enright added: “We have continued to flex to the ever-changing coronavirus situation this term, ensuring that the academic progress of our pupils, their pastoral support and enrichment are maintained. Our established eQE remote learning platform has served us well, particularly as we have integrated it with Microsoft Teams and deployed other specialised online technologies to meet specific needs, such as SchoolCloud’s Parents Evening Video Appointments.”
In his commentary on the Parent Power results, Mr McCall further highlighted that both QE and its fellow table leader, St Paul’s Girls’ School, provide single-sex education. “They provide an alternative for parents when the vast majority of schools are co-educational,” he said. Mr McCall added that single-sex schools continue to do well generally in Parent Power.