Staying Up

I have done a little research. I know that doesn’t come as a surprise, but hear me out, please. I have looked at the Premier League statistics from the 1995/1996 all the way to the 2016/2017 season. What I have studied is the chance of getting relegated once a team has won a promotion. The average data tells me that 42.42% of the teams that win promotions to the Premier League go right back again in the first year. However, if you survive the first year in the Premier League your chances of staying up improve substantially, as only 14.72% of the teams are relegated after the second season in the top flight. Being relegated in season three, drops to a remarkable 2.86%, although the chance of being relegated in either of the first three years in the Premier League is 60%. In other words, the three-year survival rate is only 40%.

I want to liken this to academic performances in schools, as I see much of the same – schools have a surge in performance, only to vane the following year. Nonetheless, worldwide, the majority of the top-performing schools are always up there.

I don’t know which division our schools ‘played’ in prior to 2019, but I would like to believe that we all won promotion to the top division in 2019. Since then our results have been very good, but it was really only last year we were assessed externally, post-pandemic. As such, last year was therefore our first year in the premier league, and ABQ was not relegated! The most challenging year has therefore passed. But It’s not over yet. I want us to put in ALL our best efforts in the coming two months to ensure we stay up this year as well, and secure our permanence as top-flight schools the following year. From then onwards, I want all three schools to make a permanent charge for the Champions League! But for now – Premier League survival is priority number one.