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Success is never far from parents’ minds when they are looking for schools for their children, although it almost invariably comes second to happiness, and rightly so. But what is success and how is it measured? One answer, provided by league tables, is performance in public examinations, but what are we to make of them? And what else should parents be looking for as the measure of a successful school?

Nowhere is the question about academic success asked more feverishly than at GCSE, the first formal stage in the public examination process. So why is it that independent schools are turning away from GCSE to alternatives, and to the International GCSE (iGCSE) in particular? The simple answer is that they are concerned to ensure that their pupils are well prepared to pursue subjects at sixth-form level and at university. Successive revisions of GCSE syllabuses have seen them increasingly emptied of knowledge and understanding, with a superficial appreciation of concepts replacing the more detailed study of facts and underlying principles. The attractiveness of the iGCSE is that it holds fast to the idea that studying a subject demands depth as well as breadth. At Cheltenham College, we offer the iGCSE in mathematics, english literature, science, history and geography. We have found that pupils enjoy and benefit from the richer and more substantial content of the iGCSE; and, not surprisingly, getting to grips with a subject at a deeper level and learning to apply principles in unfamiliar circumstances also develops pupils’ analytical and critical thinking skills. As a consequence, when they enter the sixth form and go on to university, where they are required to understand and engage more deeply with their chosen subjects, they are in a much stronger position.

To succeed in adult life, however, involves much more than simply being proficient in the classroom. A good school sets about educating the whole person, and any measure of success should take account of the opportunities pupils have to grow as individuals. Excellent teaching and learning is crucial, but schools should also be places where pupils develop knowledge and understanding, where they are given the opportunity and encouragement to find and use their latent talents, where their selfesteem is built up and their confidence grows, and where they learn to be generous hearted and service minded.

Encouraging pupils to flourish may sound like an all-toofamiliar educational cliché, but it is true nonetheless, and it is what boarding schools do so well. Learning in this broad sense does not end with the proverbial bell midway through the afternoon. Lunch times, evenings and weekends are filled with activities, ranging from academic societies and co-curricular clubs to sports and leisure activities, all of which contribute to an immensely stimulating and varied education. The overall curriculum – the sum of what is done inside and outside the classroom – provides the environment in which pupils grow into accomplished, selfconfident and well-rounded individuals.

Most boarding schools have well-developed house and tutorial structures, too, which means that support is always close at hand: at Cheltenham, academic ‘clinics’ are open at all hours and tutors spend time with their tutees regularly, offering support and advice about any and every issue. Housemasters and housemistresses know the pupils in their houses very well indeed and can provide the security and stability that they need as they find their way through the maze of adolescence. And co-education allows boys and girls to grow up together and develop a social ease and confidence that is invaluable later in life.

Success, then, is multifaceted and does not lend itself readily to any form of simple measurement. League tables, in particular, are unreliable as schools pursue other forms of examination, and they make no attempt to measure opportunity, character, selfconfidence or any of the other attributes that so obviously make a difference to pupils’ lives. But if success is not easily measured, it is easily recognised. Those of us who live and work in boarding schools see it every day!