Jilly Cooper, famous for her raunchy tales of the country set, found the inspiration for her latest novel, Wicked, in the classroom. Having spoken at length to teachers and pupils she has strong views on education and firmly believes league tables should be abolished. With hundreds of Five Valley students cramming for their exams, recent graduate Liz Weafer looks at one of the most controversial issues in education.

STANDARDS are falling, exams are getting easier and rising pass rates actually mean educational decline.

Well at least that is what those who constantly hark back to the so-called 'good old days' would have us believe.

However, I'm sure most fair minded people don't consider a time when universities only opened their doors to an elite few particularly 'good'.

The simple fact is that all students, not just those with rich mummies and daddies who know all too well the value of education, and teachers are working harder than ever to achieve good results.

In her latest book Wicked, Bisley's most famous resident, Jilly Cooper, explores the world of education and I chatted to her about the hours she spent observing pupils at Archway School and Stroud High School.

"All league tables do is name and shame certain schools," she said with a sigh.

"The poor teachers have a terrific amount of reports to write, if they were more free to teach the sky would be the limit.

"They never stop testing children and it is heartbreaking, children shine in different ways and you won't find this in endless tests."

Jilly, like many, believes league tables put enormous stress on pupils throughout their school career.

SNJ youth columnist Ben Spragg is feeling the pressure in the run up to his GCSEs.

"Teachers are putting a lot of pressure on us and some kids really panic," said Ben, 16, a pupil at Marling School.

Like most students he gets annoyed at the claims every summer that exams are being dumbed down.

"Programmes like Channel Four's That'll Teach 'Em are misleading - the reason the students cannot do exams from 50 years ago is because it is a completely different syllabus, not because they are stupid," he said.

The Government argues that league tables provide an important part of the picture of each school's overall achievements.

A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills said: "These tables are a non-negotiable part of school reform and parents have a right to see this information.

"They should be considered alongside other important sources of information such as Ofsted reports, School Profiles and school prospectuses."

But one Five Valleys secondary school teacher, who asked not to be named, said league tables are extremely divisive.

"They do not show important factors like how many have children have free school meals and how many are from ethnic minorities, these things impinge on the outcome of the tables," she said.

"Some schools perform really well considering the social economic backgrounds of the pupils, but this is not shown.

"There is so much pressure on schools to outperform each other and this is what teachers are working against."

County councillor Brian Oosthuysen (Lab, Stroud East), who taught at Archway School for 18 years, thinks that children are subjected to far too many tests.

"The thinking is that if children are made to sit lots of exams they will do better at school but that doesn't necessarily follow," he said.

"I would never go back to teaching, it has ceased to be a job I enjoy.

"Teachers spend hours after work writing up reports when they could be preparing work for the next day."

Richard Brown, south Gloucestershire representative for the National Union of Teachers, said league tables are geared towards benefiting the school and not the pupils.

"They distort school practices in ways that are really unhelpful," he said.

"A school's prowess is taken by the percentage of children who get grades A to C, so a lot of extra help is given to pupils working at grade D to shift them into the A to C group.

"No extra effort is put into those kids getting grade A or E, and this is common practice in schools across South Gloucestershire."

Lets hope that when the league tables show excellent GCSE results this year, students spirits are not too dampened by the annual criticism that better and better grades are an indication that exams are getting easier.