Schools 'to be ranked by Oxbridge success rate'

[breadandbutterfly]

Ha ha de ha:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8711514/Schools-to-be-ranked-by-Oxbridge-success-rate.html

How ludicrously elitist. I went to Oxford, but even I do not believe it is the ultimate yardstick by which all education should be judged.

The Tories really are a load of nutters.

[Kez100]

I'd be far more interested to know the % of children leaving who actually have full time work in a chosen career within 12 months of leaving their final educational destination!

Of course Oxbridge isn't the be all or end all. There are a lot of excellent Universities. There are excellent careers that don't need Uni.

Elistist trash statistics.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Ridiculous. They'd do far better making sure that Oxford and Cambridge accept a greater range of pupils each year than giving inner-city state schools another bloody yardstick to beat them with. Morons.

[EldritchCleavage]

My first reaction was 'Don't other universities count, then?' I know everyone in the Cabinet is Oxbridge, so they do lack perspective, but it is still astonishingly narrow-minded. If you end up doing science at UMIST or Imperial, or art at Central St. Martins, something to do with oil exploration at Aberdeen, has your school failed you?

My second reaction was to bemoan how limited our notions of success really are. We need sensible yard-sticks for good teaching across all ability ranges.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

V good post, Eldritch - I agree with every word.

[Caoimhe]

Ridiculous - fab post Eldritch!!

My school was hugely excited about my getting a place at the LSE (first ever from that school) - what fools!! Obviously the LSE is nothing - nothing, I tell you!

[CrosswordAddict]

Kez100 You are quite right.
Also we can't operate a nation purely using people from Oxbridge. We need all our skilled people, regardless of which uni they attended (or didn't attend) if we are to survive as a nation.

[Yellowstone]

It's a completely brain dead idea.

[Milliways]

This is so ridiculous.

DS goes to a very good Grammar that has 23 Oxbridge places confirmed this Autumn. They are also a highly selective, 4 form intake.

DD went to Oxbridge from a 10 form intake truly comprehensive school (only 1 of her year but they usually have 1 or 2 a year). I applaud her schools results much more than DS's.

[Yellowstone]

Why do you applaud it much more Milliways? I'm making the assumption that the two schools are in the same area. If not, apologies, you may have moved. You describe your DD's school as 'truly comprehensive'. So with 10 forms of 30 pupils I can't see that 1 or 2 a year is especially groundbreaking. The grammar gets in 19% and the truly comprehensive comprehensive gets in betweem 0.3% to 0.6%. I doubt that means the comp is doing so much better.

That said, this measure of success is ludicrous and marginalising and deeply misguided and unpleasant.

[Milliways]

They are in the same town, but her school has a great reputation for value added etc. She shared her form with "The first ASBO" in the town, people who knew where the drugs were (openly discussed) and a family actually featured on ITVs "Neighbours from hell" (we have a notorious estate nearby).

With all that in the mix, they get better results than all the other schools in the wider area, excluding the 2 Grammars, encourage lots of Oxbridge & RG applications, and now have a 6th form of over 300 pupils - with a fair few doing vocational studies / GCSE retakes, but all welcome if they want to do something.

DS's school is brilliant, but they start with the 100 best boys each year of c.500 applicants from a massive area.

[foreverwino]

Hey, I like the idea. There needs to be some measure to distinguish between schools at the top, now that As and uni entrance are ubitquitous.

[Yellowstone]

Most prospective parents of schools at the top can find out the information easily enough, it's all out there on individual school websites and in Sutton Trust data even if they don't know by reputation.

I'm not sure the issue is about helping those parents, it's about the probability of further marginalising groups at the other end of the spectrum.

Why would you 'need' to distinguish anyhow? You don't.

[Yellowstone]

Ubitquitous? Or even uni entrance being ubiquitous?