the times | Saturday December 4 2021 39
News
Single-sex schools reign supreme in the
Sunday Times Parent Power academic
rankings published yesterday.
The performance tables, based on
pre-pandemic examination outcomes
from 2017-19, rate schools on the pro-
portions of A-level A-B grades and
GCSEs at grades A-A or 9-7, with out-
comes for the latter double-weighted.
The latest rankings show that in the
state sector, among the ten leading
schools — all selective grammars —
seven are single-sex, with boys-only
schools edging the girls by four to three.
Two further schools are single-sex
boys’ schools from 11-16, but with mixed
sixth forms. Only sixth-placed Pate’s
Grammar School, in Cheltenham, is
mixed throughout.
It is a similar picture in the independ-
ent sector, where five of the top ten are
single-sex schools, with girls’ schools
triumphing four to one.
A further three admit boys only from
11-16, but have a mixed sixth form.
Brighton College, ranked joint eighth
and Sevenoaks School, ranked tenth,
are the only two fully co-educational
schools in the top ten.
The rankings make no use of results
from this year and last year, which saw
significant grade inflation under a
system whereby teachers and schools
decided on the grades to award with
light-touch central oversight from ex-
amination boards. With no perform-
ance tables published by the govern-
ment since the 2019 round of exams, it
has become hard for parents to judge
what constitutes good academic per-
formance.
By drawing on the past three years of
moderated examinations, sat under
normal conditions, the rankings offer
Single-sex schools
triumph in state
and private sectors
the most realistic assessment of present
school performance without the distor-
tion of the past two years’ results. They
are likely also to reflect more accurately
the future performance of schools
when examinations get back to normal,
possibly in 2023.
The tables come after a year in which
single-sex education came under scru-
tiny, with boys’ schools in the line of fire
after the publication of thousands of
testimonies from girls and young
women on the Everyone’s Invited web-
site, which alleged sexual assault or
misbehaviour from boys and identified
schools. Boys-only institutions or those
that are single-sex until sixth form were
among those most heavily cited.
Professor Alan Smithers, director of
the Centre for Education and Employ-
ment Research at the University of
Buckingham, said: “The Parent Power
three-year tables give comprehensive
data and are the best indicator of actual
achievements of the children, when
this year grades have been based on
teacher assessments, and some schools
have been more generous than others.”
The top state secondary school is
Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet,
which is the Sunday Times state second-
ary school of the year. Average per-
formance from 2017-19 saw boys
achieve 96.3 per cent A*-B grades at
A-level and 91.5 per cent at A*-A or 9-7
at GCSE.
By comparison, the top-ranked inde-
pendent school, St Paul’s Girls’ School
in London, the Sunday Times independ-
ent secondary school of the year, scored
similarly at A-level with a 97.8 per cent
A*-B pass rate, but was markedly better
at GCSE with 99.4 per cent of grades at
A*-A or 9-7.
For the full results of Parent Power
2022, go to thetimes.co.uk or see this
weekend’s Sunday Times newspaperAlastair McCall
Editor, The Sunday Times Parent Power
Measure for Measure
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,
SE1
HHHIIIf there’s one word that sums up
recent performances at the Globe,
it’s frenetic. Sometimes you wonder
if directors are so eager to hurry
things along that the verse itself is
treated almost as an afterthought. It’s
almost as if they don’t trust
Shakespeare to speak to a modern
audience.
Blanche McIntyre’s production
turns the dial up to 11, which means
that the bawdy elements are
extravagantly underscored, while
more subtle moments are sometimes
lost in the melee. Amidst the hurly-
burly, it’s a relief to discover that
Hattie Ladbury, cast as Vincentio, the
Duke of Vienna, delivers a calm,
elegantly modulated performance
that stands as a dignified contrast to
the mayhem swirling all around her.
She gives her words the weight they
deserve.
Best, I think, not to pay too much
attention to the 1970s setting. A
couple of years ago the RSC’s Greg
Doran set the play in Freud’s Vienna,
underlining the collision between
public and private morality. It’s harder
to see the relevance of flared trousers
or why the musicians in the gallery
serenade us at the start with a self-
consciously cheesy version of the
bossa nova.1970s Britain,
with a dash of
vaudeville for
good measure
Theatre Clive Davis
Daniel Miller’s Provost looks like a
refugee from Life on Mars, and when
he doubles up as the clownish Elbow,
his persona becomes a cross between
Eric Morecambe and that bumbling
Carry On star Jack Douglas. The
flickering electric lighting at the start
of the candlelit play was, apparently,
a reference to the power cuts some
of us remember from the bad old
days of the three-day week. I’m just
relieved that the mention of
“zodiac” wasn’t the cue for an old
Ford saloon car to be rolled on to
the stage.
Gyuri Sarossy grabs much of the
attention as the mischievous Lucio,
and there was a heartfelt round of
applause for Ishia Bennison after she
had finished her turn as the drunken
jailbird Barnadine. Eloise Secker gives
us a rapid-fire, spiv-like Pompey andan impassive Mariana who wafts
between Habitat-style bamboo
furniture.
Perhaps because I was still under
the spell of Tom Littler’s serene
production of The Tempest at Jermyn
Street Theatre, which I’d seen a
couple of days earlier, I longed for a
little less activity for its own sake. In
this vaudeville atmosphere it’s harder
to focus on the pivotal confrontation
between the virginal Isabella (Georgia
Landers) and the city’s puritanical but
lustful ruler, Angelo (Ashley
Zhangazha). As has been pointed out
before, it’s a #MeToo moment written
centuries before the era of Harvey
Weinstein. Another reminder, in
short, that Shakespeare is more
“relevant” than even some of his
champions seem to think.
To January 15, shakespearesglobe.comHELEN MURRAYAshley Zhangazha epitomises 1970s style as Angelo in a hurly-burly production