to not get the whole "children from comprehensives work harder to get the grades"

[Ohjustshootmenow]

An exam is an exam, right?

I agree with Bramshott

I'd agree with Cory, I think we have had similar educational experiences.

Good grades from a comp may be an indication of a clever motivated child struggling against unsupportive family and lacklustre teaching.

Or it may be a result of a clever child from an academic family who have supported it all the way and expect it to get top grades and go to the top universities.

Or it may be something in between - bright child, reasonably supportive family, supportive teachers.

Although clearly (due to my comprehensive schooling ) I can't tell the difference between an and and!

Oh come on! I went to a private school. At A level there were 6 pupils in my English class, 4 in my French class and 5 in my history class. You don't honestly mean to tell me I didn't have an easier time than my counterparts in a school with 3 times that many?

Not to mention fewer people trying to get the same books from the library.

My own study/bedroom to work in.

Really?

I think if you go to a poor comp as I did then yes it is much harder to get a good grade. Poor teaching, low expectations from teachers and disruptive pupils mean that you have to be more intelligent and selfr motivated to do well in exams.

It isn't rocket science. We accept by trying to get our children into good schools or paying school fess that they are more likely to get good grades than if they went to the school with very poor ofsted reports and exam results.

I am quite shocked looking back at how little encouragement I got in secondary school. Nobody even suggested I should go to university - I did. And I didn't know what was a good university and what wasn't apart from Oxford and Cambridge - this is when computers were still rare and specialist.

I don't have a problem with flexibility on grades, but it should apply to every applicant. A private school or GS kid may have had a rogue crap teacher, or been ill or whatever.

I had 36 pupils in my A level English class. It was above the legal limit at the time, but the Head of English did this as the teacher who took this class was one of the few good English teachers who did actually push us. And yes unbelievably we were told this is why the class was so large!

Rather than special favours for comp pupils shouldn't we all be pushing a lot harder for every teacher to be the best teacher?
Every school to be the best school.
Why should any child go to a school that doesn't teach properly?
Money should not be factor when it comes to education.
Our country would be a much much better place if every single child was educated properly.

A child will not shine without a good teacher to hold the torch on them.

My dd1 is very bright. She has performed exceptionally well in some of her years at local primary but there were 3 years when she had a poor teacher and her work nosedived!
Dd loves to work, read learn but those teachers drained the light out of school. Thank ggodness that she has wonderful teacher this year because she is doing her sats. Who knows what the result would be otherwise!!!

One or even 2 rogue teachers is different from 7 years of mainly indifferent teaching. And yes if a pupil is seriously ill during most of theifr secondary education then this should be taken into account.

Lesley makes a good point in that last para - part of what a 'good' school does is to give its pupils guidance as to where to apply to. With oxbridge there's the whole extra layer of which college, which was (and remains) a mystery to me.

OrmIrian, there is nothing that says you have to go to private school to have your own bedroom: quite a few of the children at dd's comp do. Sending your child to private school doesn't automatically enable you to afford a bigger house; in fact, often quite the opposite.

Dd, apart from her own bedroom, also has the advantage of being able to get books out of the university library and the city library- on the rare occasions when a work of literature is not already present in the parental library. And any textbook required we will simply go out and buy. We have the money to spare precisely because we are not paying private fees.

Dh's parents otoh were able to send him to private school, but did not have a great selection of books at home, had very little spare cash and were not themselves readers. He's only really taken to reading since he met me.

So you can't judge every situation on the private/state criteria; there are so many factors.

Even the fact that dd has been chronically ill for a lot of her schooling- I'd say she's had an average absence level of about 33% over the last 7 years- has not exactly been an educational disadvantage (though no doubt horrible in other ways). Very few school libraries are as well stocked as our home library and there is little else she can do but read. (Though heaven knows I wish things could have different.)

I would add that though it is possible that half dd's class couldn't give a monkey's about education, those are not the pupils she will actually end up being with for most of the time. They set for all academic subjects and for top set you certainly do need to give a monkey's.

... mind busy boggling whilst trying to imagine Cory's library.....

Anyway. It is almost certainly true that it's easier to get an A in a group of 5 students than 25, I am sure. But it's really difficult, isn't it, because you don't want to be saying that a state education is automatically worse. Cos it's not.

I went to a comprehensive school with the full range of ability. We were banded for the first 2 years into broad A and B bands and I didn't have too many problems with disruptive children - I think my ambition to learn supported by academic parents (who incidentally taught at the school) was unlikely to have been thwarted.

There were sets for some subjects in Year 9 and then for GCSEs in Year 10 and 11 more sets. For A Levels I was in groups of between about 5 and 12 and tbh would have been unlikely to have got better teaching in a private school in much of my subjects.

I do agree that some teaching is likely to be being performed by teachers whose specialist subject isn't the one they are teaching. It is also getting harder to get good quality teachers (as indicated by A Levels in said subject) but don't know how they are "weeded out" in either state or private schools.

DH went to a private school and got lower grades than I did in his exams, although probably a more rounded education overall.

Universities have a very difficult game to play in working out who should get places.

No, I meant my own study/bedroom in school. Even though I wasn't a boarder.

I had my own bedroom too :)

Not sure what I was really saying in my post above, but I agree with cory anyway :)

In terms of Oxbridge entry, having teachers who have experience of it (either in having gone there, or the school having experience of entering pupils there) does make a difference.

At my school there was a history of pupils applying to Oxbridge, especially in Maths and Science subjects. Two of the maths teachers went there and were able to support pupils applying, especially in terms of the extra exams needed (although some of those are needed for ie Warwick as well). Without that support it is going to be less likely pupils will apply, as it likely to be seen as an unachievable goal I think.

I should think that most if not all comprehensives stream and/or set for academic subjects.

LeQueen, I couldn't say if all comprehensives stream: I only know that they do around here. But then my point wasn't that comprehensives are better, just that some are good, and the dividing line is not necessarily between state and private but between good teaching and bad teaching.

As for your later post, I wouldn't consider being less well off or living in a 3 bed semi a sign of educational disadvantage: the educational disadvantage to me would be having parents who weren't used to reading or not interested. (and btw round here, a 3 bed semi is considered a sign of relative affluence )

it's not primarily about money: dh's parents probably spent similar amounts down the pub to what I spend on (mainly second-hand) books

Private school does not necessarily mean better teachers. A teacher in a private school does not have to be qualified teacher!

You might like to read this article from today's Daily Telegraph.

It's written by someone from Civitas, but is he right about a) the heritability of IQ and what that means in terms of effect on class/income and in turn education choices/outcomes and b) intelligence being the overriding factor (he's not saying it's the only factor, rather that it trumps the others).

Whatever - of course lots of private school children work themselves very hard and the competitive.hot-housey vibe of some provates actually encourages in children who are 'bent' that way anyweay.

But I went to a top private, and then to Oxfird, and the state school kids there were brighter and harder working than most of their privately educated peers. Were I an admission tutor, I would look more faveourably oupon the state educated children preducted top grades.

Privately educating parents can;t have it both ways - you cant believe state education is shite, AND not think that ON AVERAGE, the children in state schools who achieve on a par with top privates, might be better than your little darlings.