To not give a fuck about schools?

[sensuallettuce]

AIBU to be totally hacked off with this subject every bloody year.

I don't care that Saffron didn't get into your first choice school even though the local school is varie good she just isn't "suited" to that "environment" all the council estate kids .

It's such thinly veiled snobbery and competitive parenting at its very worst. Kids should go to the local school end of and if there is a grammar system state educated kids should be permitted to take the entrance exam (not privately educated kids who are trained to pass an exam) and this should be means tested.

I live in one of the most competitive school areas of the country with a massive social divide (Poole in Dorset). Because of this I ended up with all 3 kids at 3 different schools for 3 yrs .

How can people bang on about the state providing a perfectly good education then spend an extra £50,000 on a house in the "right" area. It's hypocritical snobby bollocks.

Kids will learn if they want to. I do not believe any of them have faired any better or worse due to my non choice of school. They are fulfilling who they are.

They have a loving home and are well balanced grounded kids and they know if I believe they have been "wronged" I am behind them 100%, if they have done "wrong" I am behind the school. I a, supportive of and interested in their education.

We all need to bloody calm down about this seriously

Outraged 'all this talk of Oxbridge' was sparked as a response to the antiquated notion that rich parents can buy their way in. They can't. Rich kids can still get in - but they need to demonstrate the same potential as the less privileged kids, and may have to jump through additional hoops to prove it.

I don't think there's a particular undertone here that a top university education is a necessary prerequisite to success. However, numbers going to Oxford, Cambridge and the other top ranking universities is a reasonable measure of a school's success, widely if not universally used in prospectuses across both sectors and often used by teachers as a measure of their own professional success. At some level one has to allow education to have an academic component, no?

What additional hoops are they then yellowtip?

Yellow. you are being obtuse, I think everyone understands the idea that by 'buying' your way is an expression meaning the wealthy have an easier ride in.

But Posie, some of us who either went there in the dim and distant past or who have children there in the now, think that maybe 'the wealthy' don't always have an easier ride in.

I agree with you that rich parents can't buy their way into Oxbridge. I've just been on this thread for too long and am still thinking about it all in relation to 'bad schools' and 'good schools' etc.

And I agree that it's reasonable to use the numbers of top university places gained as one of the measures used to judge how good a school is, but I think only using that is too narrow.

I think parental influence is too important to make it possible to really compare private schools with state schools, or even grammar schools with comprehensives. The difference is that every parent with a child at a selective school is one that has hopes of high achievement for their children, and places a lot of value on education. They wouldn't be using thise schools otherwise. But at comps, not every parent will value education, not every parent will be encouraging their child to go to university. So those schools will never have the same sort of success when it comes to percentages of students who went to Oxbridge no matter how good they are.

omy if the HM of Westminster says that if his pupils are required by Oxford to stand on their heads at interview to get a place to read History then that's exactly what he'll teach them to do, you don't suppose that Oxford tutors will roll over easily?: they'll ask for a back flip instead.

I think sometimes it's the difference between looking for reasons to say yes, and looking for reasons to say no.

Agree Outraged but properly good schools and teachers would only use it as a single measure and stress it as such.

Sorry Yellowtip you are spouting far too many assumptions and generalisations for my liking. What you have just said in no way proves your assertion that privately educated children are made "to jump through hoops" to get into their preferred Oxbridge Uni. All universities are quality assured to ensure fair admissions. Fact.

Don't know why am bothering a load of old bollix should never have clicked on this.

I think it's about fairness isn't it omy. And in fact I'm not assuming a thing. It's not hearsay either. Make of that what you will.

As a clever (sorry) state schooled pupil I have always been a bit bitter about this apparent 'selection' process at private schools.

Children doing these exams are only competing with the top 7 per cent. And they are being trained to do it before hand. It's not much of a real test is it? I feel that this 'selection' process is in place to make middle class parents think their children are cleverer than they really are.

I am sure there are some very clever, hard working individuals in there, but the statistics just don't make sense.

Oh and for my tuppence worth on the Oxbridge debate, I think people who get into Oxbridge from private schools do a huge amount of extra work but the difference is they were told what extra work to do. State schools kids just apply off their own steam and have to hope any extra ability shines through.

I was quite shocked to hear oxbridge don't accept you if they think you have gaps in your education, and they deem most state school pupils to have these gaps. I looked at the criteria and would have been deemed to have gaps despite my london-based convent education.

I'm sure I had 'gaps in my education'. Even though it was a long time ago now (so sad) when I was there they were already bending over backwards to try and increase access and participation. I just find it difficult to believe that at any point between then and now they backtracked on that and decided that state school people all have gaps in their education (even though I suspect many of us might).

I had gaps - I always wanted to learn latin - weird child, but not possible at my school.
DH learnt it and thinks it was pointless (no pleasing some people) but he has a better formal understanding of grammar than me. I know how to use grammar tho not necessarily when I'm typing a hasty post here but couldn't tell you what a past participle or whatever was if it bit me on the bum. :)

Don't think I would have got into Oxbridge

I loved Latin and think it would be a really good thing for any child who enjoys language to learn, regardless of ability. So I don't think you're weird, Gin.

Children doing these exams are only competing with the top 7 per cent. And they are being trained to do it before hand. It's not much of a real test is it?

I understand a lot of tutoring goes on now but I went to a very very good private school from a very average state primary with absolutely no tutoring involved (though I do remember my mother advising me to concentrate before the exams). I do not know anyone who did have tutoring for exams back then. I did at one point later on have tutoring to improve my handwriting because it was so bad that my parents feared my O Level papers would be actually unreadable by examiners. No outside tutoring of academic subjects whatsoever, and I am not any kind of genius. I was clever and interested and presumably on some level interesting to the people who interviewed me and thought I would do well at the school. A surprising number of what people would think of as top public and private schools really are looking for potential not for what children have been taught.

As for an exam being easier because you are only competing with the top however many per cent, that seems an odd statement to me. Would you say finals at a good university are easier or GCSEs? Because in one case you are competing with candidates preselected by intelligence whereas in the other you are competing with everyone of your age in the country, bar a very few. Just because a greater proportion of people pass something does not necessarily mean it is easy.

Has anyone got the actual stats for number of state school pupils who get into Oxbridge as a % of the number who get AAA or better vs the equivalent figure for private school pupils. That's the figure you want, and I know it's out there, I just can't remember it.

What is indisputable, by a combination of data and the bleeding obvious is that if you get AAA from a bog standard comp and then go to Oxford (or any university really) you will probably get a better degree than someone who's got AAA from Eton or Tiffin. Admissions tutors take this into account.

they mean gaps in the particluar subject you are looking to study.