All this stuff about private school kids being overrepresented in universities..

[fivecandles]

out of interest does anyone know whether if a child goes to a private school up to age 16 but then a sixth form college or FE college to do A Levels the student would count as private school or state school in the stats? And how would university admissions tutors look on such a student?

At Bristol uni over 1/3 of the places are taken by students from the private sector, so even after discarding the double barrelled surnames and the Etons etc, there must still be an awful lot of applicants left

No he wasn't, I'm afraid. I asked him why he didn't chuck Wykhamists out and he said quite seriously "Ahh, no, they are a completely different kettle of fish. I'd always consider a Wykhamist, some of them are brilliant. Unless they were double-barrelled of course."

He really wasn't joking. But I suppose his class snobbery wasn't quite as strong as his intellectual snobbery...

I didn't tell him one of my old etonian nephews was at Bristol!
It was a specific department where I'm willing to bet there aren't any...

My daughter had friends at that university from Eton by the way, so they must have slipped through his net.....

I think parents panic a bit but that the schools generally have found the clever pupils in the private sector still get into the best places on merit. Universities are competing globally and they will do whatever it takes, even going private, to get the best pupils.

On my point about accent, it was said I was wrong. I'm not. A recent survey found in many areas where you're dealing with customers of some kinds the companies want people who speak properly and that a candidate with a regional accent who may be as bright was not tending to be hired because they didn't speak in a way that the customers preferred. I'm not saying that is univesral in all jobs but it can matter so the sooner children are told that the better so teenagers can change their accent accordingly if that matters to them.

Yes some companies ie that have customer call centres do prefer regional accents as they deem them friendlier but this is different from your earlier point about state school kids not being able to speak properly at interview.

Freshmint - that tutor at Bristol was taking the piss. DS1 was at one of those schools and got his offer at Bristolwithin 10days of his UCAS application going through. Also about 10 from his year ended up there. I know you are only talking about a particular subject but its not true. For starters, they wouldn't risk missing out on the natural scholars that way.

To be fair historically there was this issue at Bristol - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Bristol_admissions_controversy

That 2003 episode and some private schools blacklisting Bristol would have been about the year my daughter went I think.

Research by the Sutton Trust demonstrated that the least able children (at point of entry) benefitted more than other pupils within a Grammar School. Improvement as shown by GCSE results was greatest in this group.

I wonder if the same principle is happening in universities. Pupils coming in (as a result of indicating potential at interview) with lower grades from state schools on to the same course as state and private school pupils with higher grades are showing more ability. This could be a consequence of being in a highly able peer group, and at being in an appropriate group for their ability level, rather than in a mixed ability school.

If this is the case, then the numbers of people coming in with lower grades would have to monitored and researched carefully. If the numbers of people coming who have lower A level grades increased, the impact of being surrounded by a highly able peer group would be lost.

I used to know an admissions tutor in a former poly (this was a decade or so back and I don't think he does the job any more).

He believed that private school pupils had basically 'bought' their A level results, so he avoided them. Just another prejudice due to ignorance I suppose.

He did seem sincerely to believe that, if two pupils from different backgrounds got the same A-level result in a subject, the private school one must be the stupider of the two.

I did do a gobsmacked rant at him but I don't know if he changed his ways!

Personally, I do think the underrepresentation of state schooled pupils at certain unis needs to be addressed.

And I say that as someone with children at private schools.

However, I believe, the main issue with Oxbridge is lack of applicants. This has to be resolved at school level.
Head teachers should be identifying their best students and nurturing them through the process. They should be encouraging their pupils to give it a shot. And most importantly, they should be ensuring their able pupils are not taking soft subjects.

Simply telling the unis that they will be punished financially if they don't take on more state schooled pupils is utter stupidity.

What is weird about all the many threads like this one is that there seems to be a supine acceptance that children in state schools do not get as good grades as 'private schools' and that therefore grades cannot be used as a yardstick to measure potential or achievement. If this is the case, instead of telling unis to look at other unmeasurable criteria, why not look at why state school pupils are supposed to just accept they will get a lower level of atttainment? Why are the schools, and teh teachers not held to account for that? Shame that there are no parents or pupils rioting on the streets demanding better schools and better teaching, rather than just whining that with their poorer grades they should be measured on something other than grades.

Indeed. The Government is trying. It's got this new thing that you need 5 GCSEs in 5 subjects - engilsh, maths, a science, a foreign language and either history or geog which apparenly only 15% of UK tate pupils achieve which absoluteyl astounded me. That is par for the course in every private school - indeed not 5 but 8 proper GCSEs,. Now it may be beacuse loads of them have IQcs under 100 and they can go the new technical college way and they could never have done anything but food science and childcare GCSEs but I bet a lot of them could have done better than they do if they had bothered to look up on line that employers actually want 8 proper traditional GCSEs whatever right on left wing teachers might be telling them in sink comps.

MrsGuy, I couldn't agree more with what you've said. It's not the fault of the private schools for educating their pupils successfully.

I do still think there's an element of public exams being too formulaic, which means they can be exploited by simply throwing resources (either within a private school or via tutors) to train (rather than educate) a child to pass them.

But I do find the whole argument "of course private schools are better" simply because they have small class sizes, far too many teachers, an olympic-size swimming pool and a first class auditorium rather odd.

Of course state schools won't ever be able to compete if education is seen as something that can only be achieved when vast amounts of cash are expended. I witnessed the start of the private school "arms-race" when I was at school; run-down classes with broken desks and cracked blackboards were replaced with shiny new equipment. But I don't think our education improved as a consequence.

I honestly don't understand why State schools need to be worse. They often are, of course, but that just means they need to be improved.

Smaller class sizes, better pay and conditions for teachers, supportive parents and a smaller ability range in many classes all make a difference. None of these are bad things, of course, but they do make it easier for children to maximise their potential ? that?s what you?re paying for, right?

At some schools (and I include my DC?s highly academic grammar school alongside private schools here), it is virtually impossible not to do well, whereas at my other DC?s school there is a sizeable element of children and parents who don?t see much value in education and the ability range in any given class in much greater, which I should imagine makes teaching it harder. Also in terms of league tables, such schools benefit more from trying to get every child up to ?C? level than they do from turning Bs and Cs into As so the ones who want to get As have to be much more self-motivated.

If this drive and self-motivation then comes across in a university interview, it begins to become a little clearer why such DCs look attractive to universities. And I reiterate what I said in my previous post, that one of my DCs is likely to have to do a lot more on their own to get good grades than the other.

ahem

A cynic may suggest that:

a) Selection
b) disruptive pupils edged out
c) fewer pupils with special needs ( see selection)
d) teaching to the exam
e) discouraging weaker students from taking exams in their poorest subjects.

May have something to do with the higher grades achieved at private school.

also

As the government seems to accept that it is necessary to cut learning support, ed psych and many other support roles, I'm sure it will become harder for state school pupils to achieve high grades.

This means in real terms your privately educated children will not be disadvantaged in any way

SO thre's nothing to worry about really, is there!

Freshmint,

Your friend is clearly enjoying his position of power but clearly abusing it. I'm surprised he has made it to the realms of Head of X at Bristol given his small mindedness. By excluding these pupils he does the university and it's students a disservice. On an up note those highly intelligent Public School children have probably had a narrow escape. Bristol is grotty after all!

Freshmint is having a laugh - even Bristol hasn't had yet to resort to the depths of lecturers of that 'calibre'

It is true that a student from a private school with the same grades or slightly better than a student with the same grades from a state school is likely to get a worse class of degree but there are a whole host of reasons why this may be the case:

1.) students from private schools are much more likely to go to RG unviersiteis where it's statistically harder to get 1st class and 2:1 degrees.

2.) Having got excellent A Level grades and into the university of their choice the private schools decide to stop working so hard. After all if you've got a degree from Oxford how much difference does it really make if it's a 2:1 or 2:2 a 1st?

3.) private school students are so used to being spoon fed and pushed that they lose their way at university where indepednece is expected.

4.) at their school they over achieved because of spoon feeding, pressure, small class sizes etc and their univrsity class is more a reflectiofn of their 'natural' ability.

Perhaps a combination of the above or one for one student and one for another?

Sorry, coming late to this but I just wanted to correct a misconception - private schools very often (more often than not, in fact) have WORSE teacher pay and conditions than the state sector, and many don't insist on a teaching qualification. You don't necessarily get the best teachers in private schools - but you do get smaller classes and so more one on one time.

That's not true of anyone I've ever been involved with though. They tend to have more pay available more teachers with degrees in the subject and are better all round thatn state school teachers. Just compare the list of teachers are my local comp with my chidlren's old schools and it's very obvious.

CommanderDroll. Precisely. Twice!

I get quite p*d off when we are endlessly told, like on here: 'Well, state schools should teach excellently then it wouldn't be a problem'. OK, so let's see how well NLC/Eton/Westminster/Cheltenham etc cope with having 75% of their pupils drawn from a deprived, neglected, socially marginalised, welfare dependent 'sink' council estate. Let's see the string of A's from them.

Many state comprehensive teachers don't have the luxury of small, neat rows of healthy, well-presented, properly parented, highly motivated, well-to-do 'school-ready' DCs sitting silently, yet eagerly before them as they commence their lessons. They have to take all-comers, good, bad, ugly.

I went to a 'good' girls grammar about a thousand years ago. Many of my teachers were very, very good. A lot of these got chewed up and spat out by the 2nd formers (Y8 today) who were the worst behaved in the school- no longer 'newbies' but not yet at the stage of needing to behave, shut up and listen because their O level might depend on it! However, once those teachers were teaching O level, let alone A level, they were brilliant. However, most would have spent 3/4 of their teaching careers on stress leave had they encountered the '75%' which I described above!

Many of my teachers, Xenia were brilliant. But they could no more have controlled a class of the '75%' I mention a post or 2 earlier than fly to the moon.

Which is why DCs who get very good grades at state schools should have their achievements viewed more favourably than the results of a DC at a favoured private school.

Simples.

i thought it was about 55% got grades a-c at GCSE?

getting less than 30% got my former school shut!

My google is broken so i can't search it myself. in fact everything apart from MN is bust.

But they won't as the universities want the better pupils and we can't have wholesale fixing really. However plenty now for hard subjects like medicien have an apitude test which should sort out the sheep from the goats in state and private.

34% in my local comp and the thing is there is a new standard coming out which is having 5 of a certain type of subject at GCSE which yes I'd haev assumed a lot did but in fact only 15% do. It astounded me. It si 5 of the original 8 core subjects. In the 1940s you had to pass 8 of the mainstream subjects to get your generl cert of ed. It is much the same 8 most private pupils do and univesrities want today.

It might not be true of people you've been involved with Xenia, but it is a fact. Also, I don't mean to be combative, but I'm interested to know how you know about the quality of teachers in your local comp; have you been in to observe any lessons? Did your children go there?