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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
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