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UK Language centres
Strong Evidence

Melanie Butler explains the data behind the rankings

he data for the EL Gazette UK Rankings comes from the sum-
mary statements of British Council inspection reports. Case Studies
These statements appear on the full report of every language
Tcentre. These can be found on the British Council website How do inspectors award an area of strength? Each of the
www.britishcouncil.org/education/accreditation/centres areas inspected are divided into a number of criteria, on average
six. Each is judged not met, met or strong.
The statement gives basic details about the centre, for example:
“This private language school offers courses in general English for To gain an area of strength every criterion must be met and
adults (18+)”. fifty per cent of the criteria in that area must be judged as strong.
Strong criteria are important, but so is where you score them.
Then it lists any area inspected where a centre has received a strength: Inlingua Cheltenham, for example, was marked as strong in 24
“Strengths were noted in the areas of staff management,
academic staff profile, academic management, teaching and leisure criteria, well above average but received the industry average of
five areas of strength. Had they been marked strong in just one
opportunities.”
The statement also lists areas which need more criterion in each of two areas, they may have gained two
improvement: more areas of strength.
“The inspection report noted a need for Most importantly, centres must be judged to have met
improvement in the area of publicity.” every criterion. For example, East Sussex College, our top
Where a centre is deemed by performing state college, used the wrong British Council
inspectors to have too many needs for logo, one criterion under Publicity. It may have cost them a
improvement or to have failed an fourteenth strength.
Or take the case of top independent junior summer school,
area entirely, its accreditation is Discovery Summer, with 14 strengths. It also did not meet one
SHUTTERSTOCK inspected its summary statement criterion in Publicity because it failed to publish the fee for the
put under review. Until it is re-
IELTS exam. It may well have cost Discovery Summer a perfect
reads:
score of 15 strengths.
“The summary statement has
been withdrawn.”
How do we calculate the scores?
Every area of strength, and every need for improvement for each
centre is entered into our database. The total number of needs for The Young Learner Specialists
improvement are subtracted from the total for areas of strength to
calculate the ‘net areas of strength’.
However, we cannot rank on net areas of strengths alone. While all
centres are inspected in 14 areas, the 90 per cent who take under18s
are inspected in one extra area: care of under 18s.
So, an adult school like LSI Portsmouth can only score a maximum
14 areas of strength while a school with a minimum age of 16, like learn
Wimbledon School of English, can score fifteen. But they both get a
perfect score.
The answer may seem to be simple, just divide the net strengths
by the maximum number of areas applicable and work out the
percentage.
But there’s a problem. Four per cent of schools have more needs for
improvements than strengths. A centre enrolling students aged 16+ with explore
two areas which need improvement and one area of strength for example
scores -2 net strengths. Expressed as a percentage that is -6.666 per cent.
This is not only bizarre, it’s also not fair. These centres have passed
their inspection.
So, we use a range modifier, the number four, which gives a net
score of at least one added to the net areas of strength. We then divide
the modified score by the total maximum areas of strength applicable
and report the results as marks out of ten. achieve

Reporting the rankings
Finally, in this issue we report the rankings in percentiles. So the top grow
four schools, all of which have a perfect score, are ranked as the top one
per cent and the next group of centres are all in the top two per cent.
Why are we doing that? Well, a large number of centres all achieve
the same score and learning that 12 operators are all ranked joint 59th
doesn’t give you a clear picture of their position.
We hope you agree. www. .co.uk

editorial@elgazette.com 23