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Secondary school league tables: Dudley school defends poor position

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A Black Country school says that official figures ranking it as bottom of Dudley's secondary school league tables don't give a true picture of the school's performance.

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Statistics released by the DfE last week placed Elmfield Rudolf Steiner School as bottom of Dudley's school league tables for GCSE results.

But school leaders say the figures have been distorted due to pupils studying an alternative curriculum that staggers the times when they take exams.

They say that last year 77 per cent of final year pupils at Elmfield achieved five or more GCSEs at A*-C, including English and maths.

School spokesman Chris Field said: "At Elmfield Rudolf Steiner School students study the Steiner Waldorf curriculum, rather than the National Curriculum.

"This curriculum contains all the subjects you would expect such as maths, English, science and languages. From Year 10 students study for their GCSEs whilst continuing to study the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum.

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"As a result of this they stagger their exams, taking them over a two-year period.

"However, the DfE, when reporting GCSE results across the country, do not look at GCSEs taken after Year 11.

"Even if a pupil leaves Elmfield at the end of Year 12 with eight A*s, they will appear to have failed by the DfE's measure because they would have only taken a maximum of four GCSEs at the end of Year 11.

"This is why, when you look at the DfE results, our students appear not to have achieved the benchmark grades.

"In reality this is only half the picture.

"The vast majority of students from Elmfield go onto Sixth Form College and University and our GCSE results are consistently above the national average."