By Gary Eason Education editor, BBC News website

The changes are aimed at better reflecting schools' work

The government is changing the league tables of school progress and excluding many of the schools - mainly from the independent sector - that did best.

The change involves boosting the standing of schools with the sort of children who tend not to do well.

This requires detailed background information which the government says it does not hold for private pupils.

A private school head teachers' leader said they were "well out of it", in light of problems with the new system.

Progress

The government says its new "contextual value added" rating is fairer, taking in factors outside schools' control such as pupils' gender, ethnicity and poverty.

It will replace the existing value added tables, introduced in 2002 to show how much schools helped their pupils to progress from one stage of their schooling to another.

They were dominated by independent and selective schools, just as the traditional results tables are.

The result of a pilot version of contextual value added (CVA) tables showed selective schools went down and many schools which previously had not done well shot up.

Independent schools

Giving its final decisions on this year's league tables, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) says the CVA calculations rely on detailed information about individual pupils which is not provided by independent schools.

"Since it would be wrong to include value added calculated on a different basis for maintained schools from that for independent schools, we will no longer publish any value added information for independent schools," it says.

Geoff Lucas, secretary of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, said he was aware of "a lot of unhappiness" about CVA in the state sector, where it was producing "some very bizarre results".

"So I suppose we could say we are well out of it," he said.

A bigger concern among independent schools had been that the International GCSEs in English and maths, which many prefer to the domestic versions, are not counted in the league tables.

But Mr Lucas said schools were becoming more relaxed about that too.

English and maths impact

The issue took on added significance because having English and maths is what the government calls the new "gold standard" at GCSE level.

The secretary of state recognises the need for the tables to show the achievements of those pupils for whom good GCSEs were not a realistic option Department for Education and Skills

The DfES has confirmed: "This new indicator will count all those pupils achieving at least a grade C English GCSE, and at least a grade C maths GCSE, and at least the equivalent of another three C+ GCSEs."

The effect on some schools' results is dramatic, as the BBC revealed last year.

Nationally, the average getting the traditional "five good GCSEs" in any subjects in 2005 was 57.1%.

If the five included English and maths GCSEs this fell to 44.9%.

'Not realistic'

The DfES added: "Respondents to the consultation in the early part of this year were concerned that the new indicator... would not be sufficient on its own.

"The secretary of state recognises the need for the tables to show the achievements of those pupils for whom good GCSEs were not a realistic option."

So it is also going to publish the percentage who achieved "functional English and maths" without necessarily having achieved the equivalent of five GCSEs.

The "functional" criteria are:

• Grade C or above GCSE in English/maths, or
• Level 2 Key Skill in communication/application of number, or
• Level 2 Basic Skill in literacy/numeracy