To think - yes, universities should take state school applicants with lower grades

[Lemiserableoldgimmer]

.. than applicants from private and grammar schools, on the basis that this new research suggests that as a group, state school pupils appear to be more able than private school applicants with identical A level and GCSE grades. More likely to get a good degree, less likely to drop out.

here

What do you think?

Hak how ridiculous.Talking like that just puts people from applying.We have several grammar schools near us that have all sorts of intake.It's just not true that all grammar kids live in big houses.

Cream "elite" means a select few.If committed parents are an educational advantage then sorry talking of an elite few having this advantage is just wrong.There are a whole host of other different advantages kids can have,are we going to penalise for all of them all?

My College at Oxford has a long record of looking for stare-school applicants (such as me forty-odd years ago!) and a few years ago at a reunion the admissions tutor read a letter he had had from the HT of a school in a county which the University had asked them to canvass.

The HT said that no, she would not encourage her pupils to apply to Oxbridge however bright they were. Theirs was a working-class catchment area and sending them to Oxbridge would cut them off from their roots because they would mix with "over-privileged snobs".

And this was the only answer they got from scores of schools. This was the HT who had at least had the courtesy to answer - how many others are binning such letters and their most able pupils' prospects with them?

*state-school. They did not teach me the use of the keyboard!

Sunshine - on current evidence comprehensive school pupils are being discriminated against because as a group they are losing places at the best universities to less able grammar school and private school pupils who just happen to have better A level grades because they've had more teaching time and less exposure to behaviour which disrupts teaching and learning.

Retro - grammar schools in the UK take in vastly disproportionate numbers of private school pupils compared to other state secondaries.

Said research says it's kids from schools with low progress stats that are losing out and kids from the better comps have the same advantage as kids from private and grammar schools.

I love the way the buying of places via property in the best comps is always quietly sidelined in these threads.

If we think the problem is in state schools, surely that should be fixed rather than universities.
Perhaps by allowing state schools which have the freedom to act like private schools and encourage a private school ethos -it is very little to do with money and small classes, more to do with engagement and demanding expectations.
There is no reason any neuro-typical child should achieve less than a C at GCSE and teachers should say this loudly and often - demand more and people will often deliver.

Lemis could you link evidence to show that.

All grammars?

Sunshine, are they "naturally clever" only though?

My dad's from a small town, his mum was a cleaner and his dad was a miner. It wouldn't have been normal for him to have passed the 11 Plus, he didn't know anyone who did. But he had a small hope in his heart, realistically though it was never going to happen. Neither he nor his siblings passed the 11 Plus.

My mum's parents were an executive and a SAHM, loads of books in the house, completely different situation. She was expected to pass because "God knows, you're intelligent enough" tested on her homework, in trouble if she brought home a bad report. She and her siblings passed the 11 Plus.

There is a definite class factor there, and even controlling for class it doesn't always make sense. I would have failed the 11 Plus because I had a learning difficulty with maths - once I was free of having maths imposed on me :D I did a lot better at school. I still can't do that or verbal reasoning (my dad said "he couldn't figure out the point of the questions" when I've done IQ tests I can't either). However, I did OK at university and was accepted onto a MA course. While I'm not Brain of Britain, I wouldn't have appreciated being chucked out at 16 to work in Tesco based on an exam I did when I was 11.

it is very little to do with money and small classes, more to do with engagement and demanding expectations

It is all about money.

Money for schools to be able to provide decent resources for all pupils. Money to pay staff to work with students that are struggling.
Money to pay for food for kids that are coming to school hungry.
Money to provide uniform for kids kept at home, because their only shoes. have fallen apart and wearing trainers will get them punished.
Money for parents so they can spent less time worrying about being evicted so they have the head space to be engaged.
Money to support parents who cannot read and write fluently enough to understand what the expectation.
Money to pay for laptops for kids unable to write due to disability, but don't qualify for a statement.

Money to.... (add your own)

12.7% is a long way off the 100% quoted.

Sutton mentioned parental aspirations as a particular barrier ie parents not thinking grammar is for them(which some comments on here won't help with).

So we're back to parental aspirations having a big impact,how are you going to penalise for that?It goes across all classes.The poorest kids in China do better than the richest kids here.

creamteas of course this is the normal postion of all state educated children - ffs

However, not all state schools are equal. State schools in Harpenden are better then state schools in inner city Walford. How do you differentiate between them?

Carol - it's got nothing to do with a private school ethos.

If state schools could 'lose' the lowest 15 achieving children in each class and replace them with 5 high achieving children I can guarantee you that their results would improve massively.

Some schools in the same town aren't equal.

Retropear - not being able to control for all variables is no justification for opting out of addressing one of the most glaring, widespread and institutionalised inequalities, that of the impact of selective schooling at primary and secondary.

Lemis the lowest achieving state kids in secondary schools are shoved in the same classes and kept away from the highest achieving state educated kids.So the brightest state kids who go to uni aren't actually working with low achieving kids.Lets be honest.Sate education is hardly a utopia of equality.

But it doesn't take many of the children in creamteas scenarios to impact the rest of the class.
The hungry child that can't focus disrupts the rest. The child with no shoes needs the TA to go and find a spare pair or phone the parents etc.
These problems slow everyone down.
These problems don't happen when the intake is carefully chosen.

Yes mis but how are you going to tackle the bigger problem of selection by property?

I should think every town has a school not favoured by parents who choose to live on the other side of town in order to get their school of choice.

Retro - most schools only set for a small number of subjects.

Primary schools rarely separate pupils completely by ability. My clever 10 year old spends most of his time crammed into a classroom with 29 other children, of which three have significant behavioural issues and no allocated one to one support.

Retro - you want to get your kids into a grammar don't you? Is that why you're tying yourself up in knots to argue against the recommendations of this research being put into practice?

My solution was mentioned by somebody else.

No one can go to Uni until they are 20. That gives students 2 years to decide if they want to do it and to gives the less academic students time to demonstrate other skills.