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GOOD IS THE

NEW NORMAL Contents

MANAGEMENT MESSAGE
Our new rankings show ELT standards Andrew Robert and John Duncan reveal
are rising to meet statistical norms, 21 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 22 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 23-26 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. 27-34 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 35 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 21