Page 19 - ELG1901 Jan-Feb 463
P. 19

GOOD IS THE


        NEW NORMAL                                          Contents
                                                                      MANAGEMENT MESSAGE
        Our new rankings show ELT standards                           Andrew Edwards and John Duncan reveal
        are rising to meet statistical norms,               20 seven secrets of a successful school
        Melanie Butler explains
                                                                      READING THE RANKINGS
                                                                      Simple step by step guide
              chools aren’t getting better. It’s all grade inflation,” the   21  to the way we score schools
              superstar school principal snorts over lunch.
                I choke on my spring roll. After all, his super-famous
        Sschool has just rocketed up the rankings following an
        excellent British Council inspection.                                   PLAYING THE PERCENTAGES
          “We base all our scores on inspection data,” I object. “Are you
        suggesting the inspectors have gone soft?”                              The top 50 UK centres based
          In the last ten years the number of centres awarded eight or   22-25  on British Council Inspections
        more areas of strength has gone up significantly and the mean
        average score across the accredited sectors has continued to rise
        gradually.                                                              UNDER ANALYSIS
          But, as we show in our analysis of the statistics on page 28, the     What the industry stats show
        distribution of scores now looks statistically normal.   26-32  PLUS sector by sector results
          The inspections system has changed. The criteria have become
        clearer. And step by step, year by year, more and more centres have
        figured out what they need to do to do well.
          Some call it box ticking, I call it improving performance.  MARK OF SUCCESS
          The Gazette rankings aim to                                Millfi eld’s Mark Greenow looks back
        sort out the significantly better    The British  33  over forty years of summer schools
        from the good.
          That’s why in this issue we   Council do not
        are reporting the rankings in
        percentiles.              worry about staff
          In testing, they call this norm   turnover. But
        referencing. I call it a fairer way
        to report the results when lots of   we do.
        centres get the same high scores.
        ELC Bristol and Wimbledon school of English Both have a perfect
        score: they are both in the top percentile.
          “But the scores are wrong,” another school owner shouts at me.
        “Your top schools have 15 strengths,” she protests. “We got 17!”
            I’ve given up trying to explain the difference between an area of
        strength (the basic data point we use) and a strength in one of 100
        or so individual criteria. Nowadays I just e-mail our step-by-step
        guide on how we rank schools. You can find the latest iteration on   Wimbledon School of English
        page 23.
          Next time I’ll also send on the tips for managers put together by     London
        ELC Bristol on page 22. And I’ll underline their tip number 1, staff
        retention, in red ink.                                  Proud to be named joint number one English language
          It won’t make any difference to their next inspection report.        school in the UK*
        Alone among pretty much all the UK’s multifarious educational
        inspection bodies, the British Council do not worry about staff   Exam Preparation   Business and Professional
        turnover. But we do.                                         (IELTS, OET and Cambridge)
          And so do the Chinese, at least to judge from their polite, detailed   Academic Preparation  Young Learners Courses
        e-mails. And they expect us to know every stat from every school in
        every sector.                                               Family Courses          Teacher Training
          So we have decided, in this issue, the least we can do to help them
        is to list the top UK language centres, sector by sector. You can find   30+ and 40+ Courses  Beginners Course
        the results on pages 30 to 34.
          This means we have had to limit the industry-wide ranking to the   Bringing English to the world since 1964  |  Top Centre of Excellence  |  Beautiful building in ideal
        top fifty language centres, instead of our normal top 100, which will   London location  |  Over 90 nationalities each year  |  Excellent accommodation close to school  |
        appear in the September edition.                        Junior Summer Centres  |  University Pathways and Internships  |  Authorised exam centre  |
          You can’t please all of the people all of the time.             *EL Gazette school rankings based on British Council Inspection reports
           “You don’t care about schools like us,” one
        London principal told me, “you just write about
        the top schools.”
          This year I called back to congratulate him
        on making it into the top 100.                                Tel +44 20 8947 1921  |    info@wimbledon-school.ac.uk     |     wwww.wimbledon-school.ac.uk
                                                                          Wimbledon School of English, 39-41 Worple Road, London SW19 4JZ
                            MELANIE BUTLER,
                            EDITOR IN CHIEF                                    A special interest group of English UK
        editorial@elgazette.com                                                                                19
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