THERE is a fascination in school performance league tables. People are always tempted to keep an eye on the progress of their old school.

And parents are especially keen to watch developments at their children's school and other schools in the area.

However, there is little merit in the tables, other than curiosity.

We publish the tables today, because we are a newspaper of record. As always we publish them with the proviso that parents, children and teachers do not read too much into them.

The inclusion of a 'value-added' calculation into the tables is welcome, and adds a little more credence to them. Nevertheless, they remain a crude, often cruel, indicator of the true performance of schools.

The tables continue to state the blindingly obvious. At the top of the league are those schools who select their pupils, or those in relatively affluent communities.

At the bottom are state comprehensive schools in deprived communities.

The tables do not give the true picture, which is that the standard of teaching and efforts of the children can be every bit as good in schools at the bottom of the league as those at the top.

The use of league tables in education are divisive. They give smug satisfaction to some schools, teachers and pupils. And they attach a grossly unfair stigma to the achievements of other schools, teachers and pupils.

They can demoralise the very teachers and children who need and deserve the most support and encouragement.

This obsession that performance indicators are the measurement of standards in our education system has to be destroyed.

There is much more to the value of schools than simply the scores attained at Key Stage 3 and results in GCSEs.

Of course, examination results are important. After all, they can shape adult lives and careers. But they are not everything.

Schools should be judged on how they prepare children for independence in the wider world, not just by a glance at a single statistic plucked out of thin air every year.