TOP SCHOOL?

[Foureyes]

Many Old Blues will doubtless have already read the latest edition of "Housey" and noted with pride the headline on page 1 (bottom right) "CH is Top School for GCSE Results." This goes on to say that CH is "...one of the top schools in the county" and fond Old Blue eyes may well have either read that as "country" or assumed that it is a printer's error. It is not. CH was one of the top schools in West Sussex not in England.
As a former journalist I know that while headlines should be eye-catching they should not be deliberately misleading, because once you are caught out it casts doubt in readers' minds about the veracity of the rest of the doument.
David

[eucsgmrc]

Indeed. Given CH's advantages, to be "one of the top" in a not-very-large county is no great boast. Actually to be top would be worth writing about.

I did misread that line in "Housey", and when I saw your posting I was disappointed. Not by CH's academic standards, which are excellent, but disappointed that somebody thought fit to pull a trick like this. Glad, though, that they did it in a more-or-less in-house publication, rather than in a general press release.

I thought I should take a look at the data on the DfE website, which is what Housey references. It turns out that the crucial figure for CH is 97%, equal with Hurstpierpoint and exceeded only by two (independent) schools with 100%. Another table shows that 68% achieved all English Baccalaureate subjects, and only Lancing and Hurstpierpoint did (slightly) better. Those are very creditable figures, and should make an impression without "spin".

Nationally, 324 (of 6786) schools did better that CH's 97% figure, and 261 schools beat the 68% figure. "CH is Top School for GCSE results" is simply not true.

Anyway, it seems a pity that, with so much obviously spent on the design and production and presentation of the very smart "Housey", the editorial standards aren't equally high.

[CHDad]

The "one of the top schools in the county" quote has also been pride of place on the school website homepage for some time. I too have looked at this many times and always read it as Country.

[J.R.]

I'll have to dig my copy of 'Housey' out from the coffee table and have a look.

What with football, a computer virus and a glandular infection, I've completely forgotton to open it !!

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I read my copy at the bus stop, and was pretty disgusted, to be honest, by the blatantly untrue headline, which is exposed by the text that follows it.

[J.R.]

What with all the Easter weekend footy, I still haven't got round to reading it.

In the words of many masters comments on my school reports....



'MUST TRY HARDER'.