The list of the 10 best performing schools is somewhat idiosyncratic (“It is now cool to be successful at our school”, January 15). Since when have GCSE points scores been a test of a selective school’s excellence?

A better test for a selective school, which nearly all the schools on the list are, would be whether the school retains and increases the number of students it teaches between key stage 4 and level 3 and then ensures that those students achieve a high average points score at that level. Five of the 10 schools on the list, excellent though they may be in other ways, do not meet these criteria.

Sir Peter Newsam, Former chief schools adjudicator, Pickering, North Yorkshire.