GCSE '18s (20) - half term beckons!

Brainmelt 

The thing is that private schools do serve a purpose - specialisms, special support, small schools and so on. And I totally understand people wanting to opt out of the madness of the current system. But they do seem to be amazingly expensive - and there are great results from comprehensives as well! Parental support rather than money is so important, though, as threads attest!

I love teaching but I came to it very late and it's exhausting. And I don't even teach in a school!

On a totally unrelated note has anyone visited Leeds University? There's a degree course there that might be perfect for DS if he gets the grades. I've been there once and loved it but I don't know the university at all.

Holy mackerel jufus

It all comes down to money really. I think the spend per pupil in the state sector is about £6k per year in the UK.
The average private school fees in the UK is about £12k per annum. In London it's more like £16k.

.....the difference in gcse results reflects this as do A Level results.

You won't be able to recruit and train good teachers without a SERIOUS injection of cash (which the government doesn't have).
There are some great teachers out there but they are feeling the strain and only the most dedicated will stick it out.

We could Level the playing field by abolishing private schools but that puts an extra few thousand kids into the state system. Plus it will never remove the advantage of having educated parents who take an interest in their children's education.

Yep, life isn't fair and I don't think it ever can be other than by social mobility which would require an improved education system.

I live in an area with very poor schools (virtually all the schools are on the list that receive contextual offers) but I am lucky enough to be able to afford private school fees....... it doesn't stop me feeling bad (or guilty?) for those that can't.

Reasonable adjustments by no means level the playing field for children with spld in many, many cases.

Limit in general those with splds have already been granted reasonable adjustments eg extra time, a scribe etc to level the playing field. A contextual offer would mean they were compensated twice.

If people with less favourable economic circumstances and fewer advantages get contextual offers (seems fair to me), how about students with spLD getting contextual offers...

That's some serious graft JufusMum, wow!

The state sector could undoubtedly do with more cash, but mainly the cash is needed to pay for more teachers.
I think the issue is that people don't want to be teachers because its known for long hours, a lack of respect and to be honest, dealing with kids isn't always fun, but their parents can be even worse.
How many other professions can you think of where you must join a trade union so that you have someone to help you fight the legal battle if and when the day comes that you are falsely accused of touching inappropriately (which is more or less all physical contact)? And anything you do can be taken out of context and splashed all all over the daily mail?

I'd want to be paid a lot of money to overcome that.

When I was young, until about 25, I always wanted to be a teacher. My mother was a teacher, as was my grandmother. In fact, about half the women and several of the men in my family were teachers (trained in the 1960s). Today, there isn't a single teacherin the whole extended family that was born after 1960. So, something has changed.

The reason i went off the idea was because I applied to teaching college after my degree and they wrote inviting me to interview, telling me to prepare by coming ready to speak about the politics of teaching. I wanted to teach maths, to open up a world for young minds! But the teaching college weren't interested in that. I didn't want to sit in a staffroom grumbling about funding cuts, or helicopter parents or the wrongs of austerity, so I changed direction and went into the City instead.

When my grandmother taught (in the 20s and 30s), teaching was a highly respected career. When my mother's generation taught (in the 60s, 70s and 80s), it lost a lot of the prestige and now the public take potshots at it right, left and centre. You'd have to pay me a lot of money to offset that!

Teachers are leaving the profession in droves. Many become teaching assistants because although the pay is horrible, the difference doesn't make up for the pressures of teaching that comes from the government, parents, SLT and the behaviour and demands of some of the children themselves.

The state education system is in a mess, but I think it will take more than money to fix it.

Agree Loose and BlueBelle that the problems run far deeper. This article about admissions at Cambridge demonstrates some of them I think. It’s quite old (from 2012) but I don’t expect things have changed that much.

www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jan/10/how-cambridge-admissions-really-work

By the way, I know these issues extend way beyond Oxbridge, but I haven’t seen a similar discussion of the admissions process anywhere else.

Also at the moment plenty of people are getting into RG Uni's on missed grades anyway as numbers are down and Uni's want to fill their places, so a contextual offer can be pretty meaninless.

Exactly Loose

To be honest the contextual offer discussion is just a diversion. The big problem is the underfunding of the state sector, which is where around 93% of the population is educated!
A few contextual offers will benefit individuals but they won't change much else unless other reforms are made.

I was thinking......
Parents pay a lot of money and make lots of sacrifices to educate their children privately so we can expect them to do better academically than many of their state school peers. Small classes, 1-1 tuition, longer school hours and high expectations make a massive difference to results. As a result they will get more offers from top Unis.
If contextual offers are then made to the most disadvantaged in society (robbing Peter to pay Paul) it will actually squeeze out the middle section of society
Yet another social conundrum which I have no answer for!!!
I guess the positive is that we are all more aware of this inequality than in past years and there is a desire (from most) to address this.

It sounds like the criteria used by Harvard was either flawed or had a different aim.Top universities and top courses here are under no obligation to offer a contextual place if they don't think the student has the potential to succeed. It may actually mean simply getting a standard offer despite spiky GCSE grades - but at least getting an offer - or an adjustment by one grade. They still have to meet the offer. It's not a quota system.

I think anything that can be done to help support students from less advantaged backgrounds get into university is a good thing, including contextual offers and outreach programmes and summer schools.

My DD was entitled to contextual offers as will DS but lets not be under any illusions it in no way makes up for the poor quality teaching and advice that they get and those that truly benefit are the outliers that would almost certainly achieve anyway. Until teaching becomes a respected profession who are properly paid then unfortunately things will be far from equal.........the amount of misinformation DS has been taught this early in the term is shocking and quite frankly receiving one reduced grade will go nowhere near making up for it.........sorry rant over

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Harvard in lots of trouble because of the unintended discrimination that resulted from its contextual offers?

Something along the lines that moving the goal posts closer for the black students resulted in a large number of Asian students losing the place they would have otherwise got?

It's a good idea, in principle, but it is hard to put it into practice without robbing Peter to pay Paul. You can be sure that it won't be the boys currently at Eton, Winchester and Harrow who will not get a place as a result of a positive discrimination policy but some other, less privileged segment of society.

Jufus that is amazing!
I am totally in favour of contextual offers. Universities are looking at potential. I'm also aware first-hand that students on Access courses, who often have had a very disrupted education, can get into Oxbridge. (I'm hoping for the third in a row for English this year!) The point is they often have a completely different academic profile to the conventional applicant, but they can definitely keep up once they get there and they contribute a great deal.

Your patience is phenomanol.

Wow Jufus - very steam punk!

Limit here you go... rhinestones not sequins. . Although they were sequins in my day...

I agree. I don’t think anyone can seriously argue against contextual offers.

Actually sticker I 100% agree with you. There was a poster whilst the GCSEs were underway talking about a kid who had managed to get decent results despite living in a sink hole estate and having drug addict parents.
I said that type of achievement was more impressive than my DD who has had a life full of privilege and opportunity (comparatively). Their drive, determination and intelligence to overcome adversities is awe inspiring.

I was shot down in flames when I said it before but I am going to say it again. Contextual offers are fair. Even an IQ test is probably fairer than GCSEs.

It's a weird system we seem to have in the UK 🤨

(That is obviously not meant as a dig at anyone fortunate enough to have those advantages).