‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.’ Einstein

By Rachel Owens, College Headmistress, and Ellie Richards, Director of Admissions

The Times recently published Parent Power 2024, which, according to its own criterion, creates tables of the ‘best’ schools in the UK. While our GCSE and A Level results will always be available on our website for any visitor to read, we’ve requested The Times remove St George’s Weybridge from Parent Power, because we purposefully decided not to take part in league tables like this some years ago and do not respond to their requests for information.

There are sound bites within The Times’ supplement that indicates Parent Power is interested in areas of education like pastoral care, wellbeing, and careers advice, but ultimately, the tables – from regional to national, state to independent – are ranked according to raw academic results. It is, in our opinion, purely a measure of a school’s approach to selectivity because rank order is not impacted by any other factor than public exam results, and it isn't clear if the editorial content provided by favoured schools is fact checked.

St George’s is an academically selective school, however we welcome a range of ability within that selectivity. We are enormously proud of the differentiation our teachers provide daily for students, both within classes that are set and those that are not. And while the exam results achieved at the end of the Fourth, Fifth and Upper Sixth Form Years are important, we have a keen eye on something we consider far more significant.

From the day students join us, we are monitoring the value we add to their ability. This is something captured and measured by the Government too, and each school has a Value Added score. St George’s is routinely in the top 5% of schools nationwide for Value Added. Value Added is a measure of a student’s progress, and the difference brilliant teaching and learning can make to the raw ability of a student. To achieve this, we take a holistic approach to the outstanding education we offer our students with the ultimate aim of helping them achieve happiness.

We are a school imbued with a Josephite Catholic ethos, frequently heard to say that we are perfectly balanced. And we are, but that balance is different for every single student. With a broad range of subjects at GCSE and A Level, more than 180 co-curricular weekly clubs and activities, 100 acres full of sporting excellence, a theatre, first-class activity centre and more, one student’s experience of St George’s really can be unique. We are also proud to invest in the wellbeing of our students, and while we have a well-established pastoral network within the academic team, we also have a Chaplaincy team, SEND team, counsellor and mental health lead available at all times.

We do all this with aplomb because we know happiness breeds success. Success in the truest sense; well rounded, mature, resilient, young people who know themselves and therefore achieve excellent results in public exams.

We are proud that our families are able to see the true value St George’s offers, irrespective of our absence from pieces like Parent Power. As Einstein is often quoted as writing: ‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.’

So our Value Added scores, a measure of our excellent teaching and learning and ultimately the happiness of our students, is the key performance indicator that we care most about. And until this is the KPI The Times and others like it are interested in, we won't choose to take part in their league tables.