But specialist schools seem no better at teaching children from ages 11 to 14 than non-specialists, which get less funding.

For the first time, this year's league tables attempt to show how much difference each school makes to its pupils' performances - regardless of their academic ability.

The leader of the Secondary Heads Association, John Dunford, said the new measures were just perpetuating the damaging myths of the crude and unfair tables based on five A* to C pass rates.

"There are lies, damn lies and league tables," he said.

Do you agree with league tables? Would you pay attention to them when choosing your child's school? Do you even understand the tables?

This Talking Point has now closed. Read a selection of your comments below.

League tables have served us very well Chris Klein, UK

When we were looking for our first house to buy after years moving around in the Army, we checked the schools in the area on the basis of the GCSE league tables. They helped us to narrow down the choice of areas to search for houses very quickly. We have since been very pleased with the performance of our children at the chosen secondary school. League tables have served us very well and we welcome the transparency they have brought. Methinks the teachers do protest too much.
Chris Klein, UK

League tables can fail to accurately represent the true standards of a school. For example a school which excels in certain subjects but is weak in others can end up with a lower score than a school which is mediocre all round. In some cases parents are more concerned with the quality of particular departments either because they consider them to be the important subjects or because their child is good in those areas rather than looking at the overall performance of the school.
R. Sobrany, UK

They are a complete waste of time Mick B, UK

League tables were introduced by the Tories merely as a device to shift the blame for the effects of spending cuts. They are a complete waste of time, they should be scrapped.
Mick B, UK

League tables are meaningless. The bulk of parents have little choice as to where to send their children. It's fine if one has money for a car and time to drive the kids to another school. It's fine if parents have the time and resources to move to another locality in order to choose a better school. That isn't the way it is for most people.
League tables don't compare like with like. The Inner London schools in which I taught had large numbers of statemented students. However, by and large, no assistance was provided so that these students could actually make some use of the National Curriculum. Selective schools never need to deal with such students, so it's pretty easy to bump up the results.
Arri London, EU/US

What the league tables don't show is the dedication and enthusiasm of the staff Rick Mills, UK

I went to a comprehensive school on a troubled council estate in Merseyside, and feel that the league table results do great discredit to its excellent teaching staff. Thanks to their inspiration, I got 10 grade As at GCSE (before A*s were invented), 4 As and a B at A-level and a place at Oxford. What the league tables don't show is the dedication and enthusiasm of the staff, the great atmosphere of the place, and the emphasis on enjoying the work instead of it just being a means to get exams. In fact, I would probably have got quite de-motivated if my school were an oppressive academic hot-house, with ostensibly better league tables!
Rick Mills, UK

I look at the league tables and despair. I look at the endless notes from school telling me when not to book holidays and what my children should be learning for the SATs. It is obvious these tests and tables create stress for everyone and that children are intensively coached rather than receiving decent broad education. So, the question is, who does use these tables and wouldn't everyone be a whole lot better off if they were scrapped? Society's obsession with tests and tables and results is a bad thing.
Dave, UK

League tables were introduced by the Tories merely as a device to shift the blame for the effects of spending cuts. They are a complete waste of time, they should be scrapped.
Mick B, UK

The Ofsted reports, which are available to the public on the internet, seem to me a far better way of finding out how good a school is, because it is in words instead of just numbers.
Andrew Bluemel, Manchester UK

How can the tables really reflect the school? Surely it is the pupils taking the tests that particular year. I feel saddened for those in Primary Schools, who on achieving a level 3 in KS2 SATs are deemed to be failures. There is no recognition that for some pupils to achieve that level, it is due to a super-human effort from all concerned!
Lorra, UK

I am a teacher, with experience of having taught in both a deprived city school and also in a well to-do country area. I have met with heroic dedication to the job, in both schools. League tables tell you one thing only - how much cash the parents have.
Carrie, UK

Talk to others whose children have attended a particular school to get a true picture of the education on offer Anon, UK

League tables are a bit of a nonsense. As a specialist teacher visiting schools on a weekly basis I see big discrepancies in the provision offered by different schools across the Local Education Authority, for example the ways that schools handle SATs - some schools are, to be blunt, bending the rules every year. There are so many variables - levels of social deprivation, the ability of the LEA to support special needs, parental support for the school, selection of GCSE candidates etc. When seeking a school, I'd advise parents to talk to others whose children have attended a particular school to get a true picture of the education on offer.
Anon, UK

The league tables represent the limitations of our education system, very few of our "academics" really contribute to progressing society in a proper way, academic qualifications are sought to satisfy the greed that is passed from parent to child. It is no coincidence that the "civilised" world is a social disaster, we need more emphasis on emotional intelligence in schools, every person has an equal value in life, which our curriculum, exams and teachers are incapable of measuring.
Brian, UK

League tables are divisive and only help the parents who are able to drive vast distances - rather than go to their local school. They take the places of children who live local to that school - causing them to travel to a school further away. This is so unfair. One thing is for sure the state education system is letting too many young people down.
Vee Jay,UK

Happiness and growth as a person is what is important, not results. I am a student at Oxford, and I went to a top private school. Now I realise that my school may have top results and claimed to adopt an atmosphere in which we could grow as individuals, but in reality above everything else they were concerned with us attaining 'A' grades. Now I feel that my supposed "top" school failed me, because I have only just realised that to risk failure is one of the bravest things one can do. Why do we have such a constrained and ignorant view of education? It's not about exam results.
Hannah, UK

I recommend the "toilet test" invented by my son. In choosing his high school, he went to check the toilets of each prospective. His theory is that one can tell a lot about whether children enjoy the school based on the way they treat the plumbing.
Kevin, England

League tables are important only to society. Selecting pupils on the basis of their previous academic achievements and their ability to produce high grades may push a school higher up the league ladder, but makes no difference to teaching. Society may want the best for their children, but league tables are widening the gap between "good" schools and "bad" schools - it's just like the old adage: "The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer." More funding for the top schools means less funding for the schools at the bottom end of the scale. As to whether people choose a school based on it's league performance, in my experience, the majority of people would rather choose the school closest to home.
Peter, England, UK

Surely this is a critical tool in choosing a school for your child Christine Infante, UK

Yes I do pay close attention to the school league tables - especially the trends they show in performance improvement or deterioration. Surely this is a critical tool in choosing a school for your child! Also, as a parent of a bright child, I am attracted by schools with high level GSCE results where teachers are obviously equipped to teach children up to this level of ability.
Christine Infante, UK

League tables, value added tables, they are still all measuring things based on exam performance alone. It's becoming increasingly obvious that in so-called 'good' schools, high up on the league tables, they are not teaching, but coaching! Maintaining a good reputation is a higher priority than turning out well-rounded graduates who can think and learn for themselves, prioritise their workloads, and produce things on time without constant supervision and reminding. This becomes all too apparent when these children hit the real world.
Gina, England

They contradict and ridicule everything that the government claims about the quality of state schools KJ, England

I'm a fan of these tables because they tend to contradict and ridicule everything that the government claims about the quality of state schools. They can't argue with the figures - grammar schools offer a more challenging and stimulating school environment which not only appeals to students but also to good teachers.
KJ, England

The problem with league tables is that they are to allow parents to select schools for their children. However, there are limited spaces in every school, so some people lose out. These then attend a (now certified) 'bad' school, which will drag the value of their CV down regardless of their achievements. If the school genuinely is bad, then their achievements will be due to no fault of their own. We see the stratification of children due to the status of their parents. That cannot produce an equitable society, and without equality democracy is a sham.
Andrew Bartlett, UK

Parents may well look at the 'league tables' for schools but at the end of the day the child is responsible for getting the results in his/her exams! The question really is do we really need all these statistics? Are we becoming a nation of stat watchers, when in realistic terms it does not really matter?
Richard, England

It is only the wealthy that can act on what they read Paul, UK

I think most people are interested but with the lucky exception of those on the border between school areas and those who are moving house anyway, it is once again only the wealthy that can act on what they read - no one else can afford the travelling costs that are involved with using anything but the most local school. We shouldn't be without the tables though, how can you judge without measurement and comparison?
Paul, UK

Although you cannot judge a school solely on its performance in the League Tables, I must admit to taking this into consideration when choosing a secondary school for my son last year. Obviously, selective schools are at an advantage in the school league tables, as they clearly accept only the most able of students. However it is refreshing to see many non-selective schools achieving strong results without such selection procedures. Despite the general mistrust which surrounds these league tables, I for one feel they serve a useful purpose.
AG, Essex, UK

Yes the tables are one item I considered when picking a school, but it is worth noting that most of the choice is with the school not with the parents. Two schools that I would have liked to consider locally excluded my children on the grounds of creed, as they are both faith schools and will not consider humanists.
J Barrington Cook, UK

I have no faith in these tables as they are easily manipulated Jane, UK

I have no faith in these tables as they are easily manipulated by the schools. My secondary school politely asked you to drop a subject, before kicking you off, if you were not going to achieve a grade C or above. This to me indicates how unrealistic a 100% pass-rate at grades C or above is, either at GSCE or A-level.
Jane, UK

The problem with league tables is that someone always ends up at the bottom. It's a very divisive situation: Kids end up travelling for miles after parents fight each other to get their children into the "best" schools. Others find that the school which is just around the corner is full. Good teachers leave "failing" schools. Hence more traffic, more pollution, more ghettoisation, less social integration, less community-based education and less security. Every school should be of such a standard that local parents will have no need to send their kids to another one.
Michael, UK

My old secondary school always came top in our area. However the figures did not show the true picture. Class sizes were a minimum of 35 with teachers only helping the brighter students; drugs, smoking and underage drinking were rife and the amount of girls who were pregnant by the age of 16 was the highest in the area. So much for league tables.
Sarah, UK

I can't see how it affects things, generally it's pretty easy to tell the good from the bad in the local area. I like to think I attended some of the best schools in the area and my mother didn't use league tables, word of mouth does the job.
Neil, UK

Since the introduction of league tables, teachers at poor performing schools have claimed that if progress, relative to the standard of their intake, was taken into account they would be much higher placed. The value added measure has proved this to be nonsense. The difference between bad and good schools is mostly due to lack of discipline and the ambitionless, trendy, socially inclusive policies practiced by the poor schools.
John, UK

Parents of pupils selected on ability add value themselves John Knowles, UK

It is likely that parents of pupils selected on ability add value themselves through their wealth, richness of learning resources in the home, strong sense of competition transferred to their children or keen interest in advancing their education - not always the case with the parents of children in state schools. It is hard to see how these tables can isolate the effect of the schools alone.
John Knowles, UK

Interesting how the initial reaction from teachers is negative. I thought they wanted added-value tables, but presumably only ones that don't challenge their limited view of the world!
Steve, UK