Best-schools' League Tables: Information for Schools
British private schools are renowned for their academic achievement. Our website exists to provide interested parents with clear and impartial advice and information on British private schools.
We believe we publish the most accurate exam results and league tables for British private schools. Given that close to a million visitors view our league tables each year, we believe there is a huge public interest in publishing schools' results in a fair and transparent way.
Academic success is worth celebrating, and we present specially commissioned Crystal Awards to the top schools in each category, and certificates to all schools in the top 100. We also try to ensure maximum PR for schools by publishing the award presentations on our websites and sending out press releases. We encourage all schools to do likewise on their websites and newsletters with a link to their position in the tables. Any school that appears in our League Tables is authorised to include our Best-schools logo in their PR materials.
Here a few of the principles we use when compiling the league tables:
1. As a general rule we do not try to combine scores for different curriculums (except the Pre-U and A Levels) because we believe the conversion ratios are flawed, particularly for the IBDP to A Levels. In Scotland we keep Highers and A Levels separate.
2. We like to see a minimum of 20 in a cohort to make exam scores credible. However, in the IBDP sector there are a number of successful schools with very small cohorts – so we have divided the IB tables into large and small cohorts.
3. We don’t like to see mixed curriculums where there is only one subject being taken at A Level (e.g the mother-tongue language of international students) and the rest of the subjects are Highers or BTECs. We therefore tend to ignore the one-subject results.
4. We will only categorise a school as a boarding school if it has at least 20% boarders or a minimum of 50 full time boarders whichever is the fewer.
5. The prep school tables are not based on SATs, but on pupils' progression to the top senior schools. We have broken the tables down into London Preps, Boarding Preps, and All-throughs. Given the huge number of Prep schools, we acknowledge there may be gaps in the data.
If you would like to contact us about your school's academic results or reproducing our league tables in your marketing materials, then please do get in touch.