CONTROVERSIAL school league tables were published by the Government last week despite calls by many teachers for them to be abolished.

It could, indeed, be the last year for the tables as the National Union of Teachers ballots members on whether to boycott them next year.

This year, for the first time, parents can see a "value-added" score for schools, meant to denote whether they have performed better or worse than expected.

But headteacher David Larkin, of St Bede's Middle School, Holloway Lane, said: "They do not give the whole picture for any school.

"It's interesting that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have abandoned them and England maintains them.

"But I think the writing's on the wall here as they are not popular in the teaching profession and serve very little use."

He added: "A more useful indicator are school Ofsted reports, which are widely available, or the best way is to talk to other parents."

But Mr Larkin conceded the tables had "moved in the right direction" with the inclusion of the value added score, although they were still flawed.

The main body of the statistics published shows the percentage of 11-year-old pupils attaining the acceptable Level 4 standard in English, maths and science tests.

A value added score below a mean of 100 suggests less progress has been made than expected by pupils and a score above 100 means more progress has been made.

But DfES advice does state that a score between 99.1 and 100.9 for schools with 30 or more pupils shows a generally "average performance".

An average overall points score for schools is also shown.