Financial Times Top 1000 Schools

[Xenia]

398 of the top 1000 are independent
Of the top 100 schools 80 are private and 19 grammar. Only one is a comp but it is a partially selective comprehensive.

(England only)
My older children's schools are 5th, 24th and 35th, not too bad.
www.ft.com/schoolmap-2011
The % ho get A or A* is proper subjects is a good measure and the fact they give the position in 2009 and 2008 too so you can see if a school has just had a bizarre year.

Sorry, I thought it was clear from her post that she disapproved of the term, which had been first used by xenia.

I was unclear why you would wish to use such an offensive term again, you have explained now, thank you. Clearly, you would not choose to be so offensive normally.

Your previous terminology was clear enough, I just have trouble following your logic, But as Xenia says, we are all free in this country to follow our own logic.

Some children are brighter tahn others. The state system migh in most of the country have chosen to pretend all children are geniuses and great and thus ensure they have no ability to cope with a very very competitive working world but thankfully the private school system exists in the real world of fierce competition where you are b etter or worse than others at things and where you might indeed get a red cross and a bad mark.

Parents pay to ensure their children are in a competitive environment from age 5 with bright other children if you want this type of school which p lenty of people don't.

To suggest all chidlren are of similar intelligence in some kind of communist parallel universe is laughable. They aren't.

if the state3 system has given up on distinguishing these things (which I am sure it does not as even most comps set) then it is no wonder the priate sector is rushing ahead of the pack and providing some of the best education on the planet being emulated all over the world. You don't get China Malaysia and the like wanting to clone comprehensives, do you?

To suggest all chidlren are of similar intelligence in some kind of communist parallel universe is laughable

Who has suggested this? i haven't read this anywhere on this thread, xenia.

So what's the issue? I said children are of different intelligence levels. People object to talking about IQ in the state sysetm do they? What politically correct term can be use them - chidlren of differing intelligence or something?

It doesn't matter. The more the state sector pretends everyone is the same the worse it does and it is getting worse and worse since the 60s as the state sector does badly and private sector does better and better. So I'm not objecting although it might get so bad that at some poine we have to import workers rather than use the indigenous population to get some jobs done I suppose.

Xenia, I am no longer going to repsond to you, I find you fundementally offensive and I actually find myself pitying you and your very limited view of the world.

I wish you well, but I no longer wish to spent any time in your company.

she really is sickening isn't she?

She really ought to visit a good comprehensive in the state system-it would be an eye opener-she hasn't a clue what sort of education they offer.

Xenia would be put off by the lack of maintenance, the poor diction and the amount of litter at lunch times, and rightly so.

This is a thread about selective schools most of which are private sector. Lots of people have fundamental objections to selective education and indeed private schools. It does us all good to heasr the views of others but as I say we are thankfully a free country and can choose with whom to converse and where to post. It's easy enough to avoid thread of mine or posts of mine but I think it does most of us good to hear the views of others.

50% of children at the best universities are from state schools. I have never said those schools don't get children into the best universities. However some of them get in by the skin of their teeth against all the odds. Others are comprehensives in name but everyone nearby can afford an expensive house. Only places like Brighton bus children around so in a sense plenty of state schools are selective whether by religion or house price.

The state education sector has improved over the last 10 years. The last government increased spend per pupil to an average of over £6k PA. However, that the private sector improved also and the gap between the two has widened.

"An analysis of exam results has revealed that 32.6 per cent of privately schooled A-level candidates gained three A grades last year, compared to 8.1 per cent in comprehensives.

The figures in 1997/08 were 16.9 per cent and 4.7 per cent respectively."

Just to be clear - the numbers above refer to A-level candidates only.

I don't understand why people are getting so upset, is it the concept of selective schools skimming off the top level or is it the idea of paying for education?

I was a bright child that went to a comprehensive, nobody in my family has ever been to university and I wasn't encouraged in any way. The only reason I was encouraged to stay on to do A levels was because my father would continue to pay maintenance. My school put me in the middle stream, I was always at the top of the class but when I asked if I could be moved up they said that the line had to be drawn somewhere, so no. I had read all the books on the English lit O level, but wasn't allowed to take it because I'd been in the middle stream - basically an awful comprehensive education.

I didn't go to university, but did have a 'high flying' career (pre children).

I will do everything I can to ensure that my dc's don't have a similar experience. We can't afford to educate three dc's privately, but we do live in an area with good schools. My eldest is at a state grammar (in the top 100 and not in the SE) and I hope my youngest two will follow her. There's a good chance that dd2 will, but I'm not so convinced about ds. Reading this thread has made me think about that and I'm now inclined to think that we may send him to a private school at 11 (assuming he gets in).

My experience of a state comp in the 1980's was awful and I don't care about what other people do, but I will do everything to make sure my children don't have such a bad start.

Em, jackstarb, I was indeed quoting Xenia as MC points out. That's why I put the words in quotation makes and said that they wouldn't be my choice of phrases. How lovely that you embellished them.

So it's a thread about selective schools, rather than 'top' schools. Actually, that makes a bit more sense.

And do all selective schools talk about the 'mentally subnormal', 'remedial, and 'low IQ' or is that a MN speciality? (absolutely serious question, btw)

But Xenia, kids from state schools with the same or worse grades as those from private schools end up doing better than kids from private schools at university which does rather undermine your 'skin of their teeth' argument.

In fact, because of selection, smaller class sizes, etc, etc private schools can ensure that most of their students work to capacity but they are unlikely to be any more intelligent that students achieving the same or worse grades from state schools.

It would therefore be in the interests of universities and probably society as a whole to alter the balance of university entrants in favour of state school kids.

This is a fact which you are likely to ignore on this thread as you have on others.

This is a thread about selective schools most of which are private sector

Well I didn't realise that at all until I'd read 80% of this thread! Top 1000 schools does not/should not mean selective schools!

It entirely depends on how you judge our schools.

'the private schools can be really gooda t finding that one thing the child can excel at and give it the right accent, confidence, contacts and a range of sporting achievements which set it on a life of confidence and success.'

Can we be absolutely clear about this. What you are talking about here has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with snobbery and social class.

It's enormously depressing that some people still associate a life of success with such superficial qualities as having the 'right' accent and the 'right' contacts.

Why is it depressing fivecandles ?

If you don't think these things are important what does it matter if someone else does?

Seriously, I don't understand all the mithering on this thread. If league tables don't float your boat, why on earth would you spend any time bobbing about on this thread?

A bit like arguing with the chicken keepers when you don't keep any chucks, no?

My experiences of a state secondary are the same as Thumbs. I was in the top stream with others who didn't want to be there. My GCSE grade's were not the greatest (1B 5Cs) but were some of the highest for that school. I was capable of doing far better but it's very difficult to hear your teacher when the class is shouting out/teachers walking out etc. I wouldn't wish this on my child. So you're lucky to have access to a great state secondary, congratulations. Please remember that we are not all as lucky though.

There is dispute over whether state school pupils do get better degrees and even if they do (and for many employers if you do not get a 2/1 these days you are not considered although first/2/1 does not usualyl clinch it so any difference along those lines may not matter in practice) I suspect the other advantages of private schools tend to win out.

Jane from her comp firt in her family at university thinks she's done tremendously well because she's gone into teaching and earns £30k, which is double what her mother ever earned and she has done supremely well but Jill from her selective private school is after considerable wealth and might aim higher. Her expectations have been heightened.

The fact that you might do "better" in life and work because of a range of factors is simply a fact. It is as likely O earn what I do because I am 9 stone and quite pretty and quite good with people and have fairly received pronunciation as much as because I got the best A levels in the school, was top or almost top of my year at university and all the other stuff. Success results from a mix of factors although in many careers your ability to communicate and have an accent most people understand can matter too. I have never had children at a school where I was happy with how the other chidlren talk as I didn't choose schools on snobbish grounds but for some that's a factor in school choice as well.

771 and a comp but one of the better ones probably because we do not live in a selective education area.

Hmm,a little bit naive aren't you wordfactory? Why does it matter if your life chances are determined in the womb by how much your parents earn or don't earn? Why does it matter that social mobility having remained static for decades is now decreasing? Hmm, I wonder...

Well, I suppose it doesn't much matter if you're Prince William but it really fucking matters if you're born in a council estate where your nearest school is shite and some idiots might reject you from a good university because you've got the 'wrong' accent and daddy hasn't got any contacts

That may be so fivecandles, but does that mean that if you can afford to privately educate that you shouldn't?

'There is dispute over whether state school pupils do get better degrees'

Oh really?

'State school pupils 'do better at university'Research finds students from comprehensive schools get better degrees than privately educated peers with the same grades

Research carried out by the Sutton Trust has boosted the argument for taking into account the educational context of a student at admissions level.

Pupils from comprehensive schools are likely to do better at university than children educated at private or grammar schools with similar A-level results, according to research carried out for the government and published today.

A five-year study tracking 8,000 A-level candidates found that a comprehensive pupil with the grades BBB is likely to perform as well in their university degree as an independent or grammar school pupil with 2 As and a B.

The findings will strengthen demands for university admissions tutors to give more favourable offers to candidates from comprehensives, as they indicate that private or grammar schooling boosts a pupil's A-level results by at least half a grade.

The research also shows that comprehensive pupils do better than grammar or private school pupils with the same A-level results in degrees awarded by the most academically selective universities, even though the intake of these institutions is dominated by privately educated teenagers. The effect was found across all degree classes awarded in 2009.

The research, which was carried out for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the education charity the Sutton Trust, found that privately educated graduates with the same class of degree as comprehensively educated ones had A-levels that were between half a grade and 0.7 of a grade higher.'

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/03/state-school-pupils-university

And Xenia, unlike you, not everybody judges success by how much money you earn.

I work with someone who has a 1st from Cambridge and gave up a high flying, megabucks career to teach.

He considers himself much more successful now and much, much happier.

'The fact that you might do "better" in life and work because of a range of factors is simply a fact.'

By which you mean snobbery and prejudice are 'facts'.

Well, excuse me for wanting to live in a society where people are recruited on the basis of merit rather than because of their accent and contacts. In this day and age that is no more acceptable than choosing someone because of the colour of their skin or their gender.

It is astounding that you are somehow trying to defend objectionable and entirely counterproductive practises.

Absolutely fivecandles (and my DCs school is in that list!!!)