To ask why two London boroughs send more kids to Oxbridge than the entirety of Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester combined?

[nickymanchester]

I was reading an article in The Guardian today which claimed that more children from the London boroughs of Richmond and Barnet go to Oxbridge than all of Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester combined.

For context, the population of Richmond and Barnet combined is about 540k (Barnet actually has quite a lot of people living there) according to the ONS - so about the same population as Sheffield.

David Lammy says England is failing those who don't go to university

This is the quote:-

He noted that university access data reveals that geography is as much of a fault line as class or race. “Two London boroughs, Richmond and Barnet, send more kids to Oxbridge than the entirety of Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester combined,” he said.

So, is it just down to all the private schools in London? Or is there something else affecting these figures as well?

Kingston isn’t in Richmond. Richmond doesn’t have Grammar Schools.

I was a northerner who didn’t think Oxbridge was for people like me. Parents clueless, crap school and I didn’t really do well until third year at university when it clicked. I believed intelligence was fixed, genetic and I wouldn’t do well no matter how hard I worked. I was lucky to get a decent university place.

So it wasn’t just about it not being for me, but that I didn’t believe I was able to work harder and didn’t have any guidance on what was required and how to work harder. I’m studying as an adult and am much more focussed.

There are often ‘poorer’ families who get help but often the parents are very clued up and motivated. This is a big advantage for a child in itself, never mind the pushing to apply and help navigating the system. Money isn’t the only way a child can be advantaged.

Regarding the travel to the Oxbridge evening, schools tend to flag it up to pupils and they often hire a coach or mini bus to get pupils there. FSM DC are on pupil premium and this can fund it. Often DC know others who are going with a car and lifts are offered. The idea that transport cannot be found is a bit silly. As is worrying about where it’s held. Just get on and do it!

I didn’t hear an interview with a kid who’d got into Oxford from Tower Hamlets or similar. They so wanted a poor immigrant kid done well story. However his parents were both university graduate, professionals. Hardly disadvantaged.

Compared to me being first in the family but no immigrants since the early 20th century, and they were white.

I have a friend who’d consider me very offensive for suggesting her kids were disadvantaged compared to mine, just because she was born in another country and with darker skin. Many immigrants have a different work ethic and attitude towards education. Many working class kids (of any background) have to fight against a culture which thinks learning is bad. That was my experience up north while down here it seems to be the opposite in many schools.

There are other parts of the UK apart from London and the North. Just sayin'.

Yes it's the school's in the borough, the rest of these replies are just conjecture and have a tiny impact. The answer is the extraordinary amount of high achieving state (grammar) and private schools. No other reason is significantly relevant.

Catloon You said that immigrant children from council estates were outliers. I can’t see how I have misquoted you.

Read again howwud

The two Tiffin Grammar schools in Kingston are different to typical grammars in that you don’t need to live in the Kingston Borough to apply. You can basically make an application from any address. So many will (and do) come from the Richmond Borough, just as many will come in from Surrey. For instance my youngest has just done 11 plus last Jan and 3 from that year group will be going to Tiffin Boys or Girls in Sept - two from Putney (which is in Wandsworth) and one from Sheen (which is in Richmond).

I wasn't worrying about where it was, Bubbles - I can drive and have a car. I know where the school is, and I was able to take DS's friend and his mother.

My point was that if you are doing outreach, and you want to get your message out to kids in disadvantaged areas, maybe hold your event in the disadvantaged area, not in the private school in the leafy suburb. None of the schools in our chain offered transport, and I didn't see any minibuses from other schools there, but like I said, it wasn't well attended. Possibly if it had been somewhere easier to get to, not to mention somewhere the parents were familiar with, it may have been. Obviously I can't know either way, but it would have been a better look.

It may be that the private school asked for them to come, maybe because they have a 6th form and none of the city schools do, so they don't ever deal with university applications, everyone goes to either the 6th form centre or one of the colleges, but if the Oxbridge people had a choice, they would have had a greater chance of success if they'd held it at one of the schools in the city.

There are other parts of the UK apart from London and the North

Yes, I'm also not in either of these places!!

Howwud
Immigrant children from council estates on a full bursary at a top private school is not the norm. You might not like the term outlier but you can’t say it is average either.

'Regarding the travel to the Oxbridge evening, schools tend to flag it up to pupils and they often hire a coach or mini bus to get pupils there. '

You're living in a different universe from me.
A certain type of school, with a large number of potential Oxbridge students, might indeed do those things but if you think it's standard you are beyond clueless.

To give you an idea howud- at one of the independents near us, 1,300 children apply at 11 plus for 150 places going into year 7.

You can have all the money and privilege behind you in the world, but it’s fiercely competitive and many many super-bright DC will be rejected.

So imagine how bright and focused a child must be to get one if the 15% bursary places. It’s not just an exam they go through, there’s an interview process to get through as well which is understandably daunting for many ten year-olds who haven’t been to preps that at least give some preparation for this. These children are truly outstanding and usually in more ways than one. It’s not about their racial background As I said, pupils with two British parents are very much in the minority in this school, anyway, whether they are in bursaries or not.

My point is that the schools shouldn’t be clueless. They have the PP funding they can spend on this. The fact they don’t bother says lots about them. Where my DD went to the Oxbridge meeting lots of DC came from surrounding schools. They had organised coaches. A bit like a school trip. It’s possible if schools care. Of course what it actually shows is that they don’t.

PPP funding may be spent on many other things that improve outcomes other than oxbridge events. Note as well that PP funding does not exist for post 16 education.

There are plenty of other calls on their pupil premium funding!
But why organise something in such a way that the child is dependent on either their school to organise a coach or their parents or friends' parents to drive them? Why not simply hold it somewhere the kids have more chance of being able to get to under their own steam?
It shows a monumental lack of awareness if the Oxbridge outreach organisers don't realise that this simple thing creates barriers for some of the very kids they most need to reach.

There's a lot of misinformation on this thread about Richmond schools! Upthread Catloon listed out a number of schools only one of which (St Paul's boys) is located in Richmond Borough.

St Paul's boys, Hampton and LEH are in Richmond. All the other schools listed are not:
G&L, LU, St Paul's Girls are all Hammersmith and Fulham
Putney High, KCS, Wimbledon High are all Wandsworth
Kingston Grammar - Kingston as are Tiffin x2

I would like to know where the Guardian stats came from. All the schools listed take pupils from a huge area, only a small part of which will be Richmond borough.

Well to be fair I know absolutely nothing about schools in Richmond, Barnes and Sheen. I still really do not like the word outlier being attributed to children. It’s incredibly divisive.

Pp kids don’t make enough progress from ks2 Sats and gcse. Not enough pp kids do well in Sats. As such I would have thought your average comp had more important things to spend it’s pp money on. Spending it on Oxbridge outreach when few are in the top sets and many struggling would be ridiculous.

PP is specifically for disadvantaged DC. There is no reason why y11 students cannot be included at the Oxbridge events. PP is about raising attainment but for the very bright it can be used in supporting their self esteem and promoting their further education through clubs and expertise targeted at them. In this case expertise in applying to Oxbridge. The schools must spend the money on these very bright eligible pupils and not scattergun it around and divert it away from them. An individual approach should be worked out for the pupils. Plenty of schools do this and it must benefit the very bright as well as those who are behind.

AlwaysFrank - if you go back, you will see that I’ve stated that those schools are not all in the Richmond Borough. But we are talking about children who LIVE or come from the Richmond Borough who gain Oxbridge entry and why this might be. I’m staying many children who use these schools live in this Borough.

For instance, if you live in Barnes (Richmond Borough) it’s a short walk over Hammersmith Bridge to get to SPGS, G&L or LU. Coaches go from Barnes Green every morning to Hampton or LEH. Many at Putney High, Wimbledon High or KCS will reside in the Richmond Borough. That’s a choice of about 10 top schools - nine of which are more than a 15 min drive away. St Paul’s Boys is in Barnes. So it’s a combination of it being a wealthy borough where a skewed proportion of parents seek independent schools, as well as the fact that many of the “top” schools are more if less on your doorstep, that I would think contributes towards the stats the OP quotes.

None of which are more than a 15 min drive away - apologies!

To ask why two London boroughs send more kids to Oxbridge than the entirety of Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester combined?

1. Economic capital- people who live there are (on average) very rich.

2.Social capital- people who live there will know people who went and leverage those connections.

3.Cultural capital- that expectation and familiarity with power seeps into your bones when you grow up on the right side of the oligarchy. On average poor/northern kids see Oxbridge as 'not for them’

Exactly this ^

@whatsthecomingoverthehill rents vary between Unis. As an example, DS is at a less prestigious Uni in a small city, and paying £90 a week, my friends DD is in London paying £200 a week. The difference between Cambridge and where DS 2 is going is £60 week, he wouldn’t get any extra maintenance loan for going to Cambridge and we can’t afford £60 week extra for him, we have 2 other children to support

Yes I know pp is for disadvantaged kids. My point is they won’t be putting on coaches if they haven’t got a coach load of pp Oxbridge level children. Aside from that the pp may already have been allocated to those pp children in other ways. Getting them through GCSEs and a-levels to the best of their ability is probably a bigger priority than Oxbrixge outreach.

Bubbles, the school do put on a lot of extension events and classes - they took a sizeable group to the local university last week for an event, they've put some kids into Saturday classes at the same university, they've run a lot of stuff overall for high achieving pupils, I cannot fault them for that, they do an amazing amount with very little, and especially considering they have a very broad range of abilities in the school.

They also do a lot of sports activities and far more arts stuff than I expected (I have another child at the school who is probably not going to get these sort of invitations, but who has been involved in a massive citywide arts project all being driven by one of the art teachers at the school). I don't fault them for not offering transport to this event.