Two of Britain’s leading independent schools are to boycott this summer’s exam league tables, claiming they do not give a true picture of academic achievement.

St Paul’s School for boys in Barnes, South West London, and Eton, in Windsor, confirmed yesterday that they will refuse to submit their GCSE and A level results to the Independent Schools Council for publication in August.

They will join Winchester College, which took the last same step last year.

Martin Stephen, High Master of St Paul’s, will use a speech at the Boarding Schools Association annual conference in York today to appeal to other independent schools to follow suit.

League tables which gave an equal weight to an A level in physics and a diploma in flower arranging were nonsense, he said.

He added that league tables killed good teaching and damaged education, as they encouraged schools to teach to the test and in some instances to enter pupils for soft qualifications, rather than for more difficult traditional subjects.

Tony Little, head master of Eton, said that school league tables had served a good purpose when they were first introduced about 15 years ago, but had now outlived their usefulness.

“Initially they were very refreshing as they threw a light on what schools were achieving,” he said.

However, the recent proliferation of new qualifications, such as the International Baccalaureate and the Pre-U diploma, meant it was increasingly difficult to compare school performance.

“It’s like comparing apples and pears,” he said.

Mr Little added that the league tables published in the media in August were also highly misleading because so many marks were changed following appeals. Last year 75 examination results from Eton pupils were upgraded following appeals to the exam boards.

Although both schools are boycotting the summer league tables, their results will still be published by the government in January, when it publishes the examination performance of every school in the country.

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