Days of
judgment
Leanda de Lisle
The pressures of writing my book and school holidays have kept me away from The Spectator recently, but the new school year now approaches and with it this week's league tables. We've had the judging of hounds at the puppy-show tea and now it's time for the judging of schools, although I think the first is a more serious exercise.
The puppy show was held on our lawn because foot-and-mouth restrictions had put the usual venue, the kennels, out of bounds. I wore a triple toe ring that caused our local GP and hunt chairman some concern — and not on medical grounds (save some niggling worry about my mental health). Most of the attention, however, was centred on the hounds. Without the protection of the kennels we could see their puppy-like behaviour before they entered the ring. Some of these 'ruthless killers' had to be carried from the trailer, while others desperately tried to wiggle under the railings as they waited their turn. Happy and Handsome stood up and rested their paws on top of the railings with their pink tongues hanging down or curling up as they panted or yawned.
The kennelman managed to make the puppies look sensible for the few brief moments they spent in the ring, but the audience knew the truth and giggled as the judges looked solemnly at the dogs they had raised. After several couple of hounds had done their turn an announcement was made, Havoc and Passion had taken the first of the prizes. Havoc was all over the place and Passion was an ugly bitch, but judging puppies is a less exact science than ranking schools, or so some would believe.
People love reading lists, which is why newspapers and magazines publish them. They name ten top people, 20 ways to wear your hair, dos and don'ts in school uniform, where to go on holiday, where not to go, which school is producing the most A grades at A level, which isn't. Last year St Paul's Girls came top of the crop in the league tables — of schools, that is, not holiday destinations. It seemed their pupils had beaten Eton into a cocked hat. But the sixth form at St Paul's Girls has about 95 pupils while Eton has about 250, If the girls had been compared with the top 95 at Eton, the result might have been quite different.
League tables are a useful source of information, but a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and sending your child to a school at the top of the tables could do more for your ego than it does for your child. Some children prefer to be the head of the mouse than the tail of the lion. Others want to go to a school which will take less academic siblings. Bright children need to be educated in their own sets from about 13 years of age; they don't need to be hived off into their own schools, as examples all around us show. Perhaps it is the average child parents should worry about when they look at these tables — the one who causes some schools to cut back on extra-curricular activity to keep their pupils focused on examinations and thus keep the school high in the league tables. I hope such pupils eventually rebel but I fear they may simply become utterly conventional.
Furthermore, while I always hated sport and was a bookish child, I am appalled that those who are good at sports rather than books may now be seen as a drag on a school's place in the league tables. No puppy-like behaviour is allowed behind the scenes when it comes to the judging of the schools. Where are the brains in that?
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