Not one pupil in Knowsley went to Oxbridge last year and only 2% went to RG universities.

[thebestisyettocome]

In adjoining areas, Sefton and Halton, admission to Oxbridge was also 0%.

I'm really angry about this. No wonder people who can afford to send their children to private school.

Another issue is if you look at top schools for A levels so very many are in SE England. Why should that be?

The FT tables are best as they do not include "studies" and useless A levels like law that some schools use as they are soft and easy and con their pupils into thnking are okay. rankings.ft.com/secondary-schools/secondary-schools-2011 There is Manchester Grammar at place 14 but apart from that the top few are so very much South East. Why is that? When I took my A levels in the NE they were the very best in the school by a long way.

Is it low expectations outside the SE? Is it law IQ? Is it that people like I am move to the SE and perpetuate this distinction?

Xenia
the South East bias has two main causes

• population density : Hampshire has many more schools than Cumbria
• parental qualifications and wealth : the London jobs effect - not just your kids but your PAs kids and rippling outwards levels of higher aspiration.

Xenia. What's interesting is that the list you have linked has Merchant Taylors Boy's School (93) which is in Sefton, one of the areas I've mentioned in the OP.

TalkinPeace:

"Ephiny
If both your parents were University and you are over 20 then you are VERY unusual. As when DH and I went only 1 in 20 went to University. So you are the 1 in 400 that is most likely to go."

that really doesn't work. If 1 in 20 went to university, there are going to be far more than 1 in 400 families where both parents did: eg, assuming equal numbers of male and female students; 1 in 20 families has a university educated mum. The chance of that mum having a university educated husband is far more than 1 in 20; the odds that she met him there are not that bad, and the odds of her then working in a graduate-heavy environment and meeting more graduates are also pretty good.

Even without the assumption, more graduates are going to breed with other graduates than if it were completely random, as your multiple suggests.

(Both my parents went to university, and I'm in my 40s; maybe that is what made me pedantic!)

how many applied?

desert
1 in 400 of any single cohort
as 19 in 20 did not go to uni nor did 19 in 20 of their available partners of the same age
I'm like you - I only met the children of graduates
till I met DH

and I'm ever so chuffed at the moment because two of my clients who both left school at 16 - with a bit of badgering from me - let their DD do A levels and then with a lot more badgering and me helping them with the forms she went away to a redbrick Uni and has now got her PGCE. And a job.
Her earning power will rapidly outstrip either of her parents. SO SO pleased

Yes, 93rd Merchant Taylor's (the Northern one) private fee paying selective.
And Manchester Grammar again Northern fee paying I mentioned above the Newcastle Royal Grammar (ex direct grant, Northern fee paying) 70the in the country. So if Newcastle, Manchester and Sefton can get those children in the NOrth in relatively high positions in league tables why not the comps? The simple answer is that there is no selective state school provision in the North. It was abolished where I am from in about 1970. However the idea is supposed to be that the cream of the clever poor at comps can still do well. That doesn't seem to work, sadly inmost areas of the country except areas where parents are quite rich but are state school parents.

Anyway there is certainly an issue with low expectations. I often post on threads about feminism and how womenshould aim harder and loads of women pile on and say someone has to be the carer. I would rather my daughter worked in a care home than was a surgeon. The country is packed with women with very low expectations which I suppose leaves the field clear for those of us with high expectation so perhaps I should be encouraging them in their low expectations to keep the playing field clear.

LOL at Xenia.
Maybe the UK should abolish maternity pay like the US and then women could be hired by top companies when six months pregnant www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18868409

But I accept your point that what is working in Hampshire comps is clearly not working in Merseyside ones. But I do not think Academy conversion will help ....

Xenia, I had to do a double-take there; thought for a minute you were expressing your own views on carers/surgeons!

'fivecandles
and your second point is one of the few REALLY good things Gove has done '

That is one point of view BUT there are many who would question whether it's 'tradition' that we need in the world as it is. Why, for example, is Latin included in the EBacc but not ICT?

I have taught very bright students who have made an informed and positive choice to study 'non-facilitating' subjects that rule them out of RG universities and Oxbridge BUT allow them to pursue their passions and talents. As long as they are aware of the risks who are we to say they've got it wrong. As it happens one of my students who chose Performing Arts and Drama is now starring in a BBC drama and has a glittering career in front of her. I really don't think that she's lying in bed at night regretting that she's not at Oxford!

I think my wider point is that lots of Mumsnetters get their knickers in a twist about who gets into Oxbridge but the nature of Oxbridge and RG universities is that they will only ever educate a very tiny elite. Why are we not challenging this hierarchical system itself? Or focusing our attention on those kids who leave school with no or poor qualifications rather than worrying about those kids who have to go to Durham rather than Oxford?

talkin peace, for it to be 1 in 400 you are assuming completely random distribution; ie it is equally likely that any graduate marries someone who left school at 16 with no qualifications.

1/20 * 1/20 = 1/400

Whereas, assuming that there is a 50% chance that a graduate will marry (or at least have children with) another graduate, the chance is

1/20 * 1/2 = 1/40

So a child would have a 1 in 40 chance of being born to two graduate parents.*

I think the second example is more likely to approximate the truth than the first.

And I certainly didn't only meet the children of graduates; I grew up in a little village in the middle of Scotland, very socially mixed. Out of my class at primary school (14) 7 went on to uni though - aberdeen and edinburgh (and one in England), not sure what they count as now!

'Why might a high-ability kid from a working class family "not like the very traditional courses offered by Oxbridge and RG universities"?'

This is pure snobbery. I can't believe there are people, like Gove, who accept without question that 'tradition' = good.

You could equally argue that those students who want to study courses that reflect the world in which we live and have changed their content and delivery in the last few decades are demonstrating their ability!!!

desert you are missing out the second part of the probability function
which is that for a child with neither parent having gone to Uni, in the days when it was 1 in 20, there was a VERY VERY high chance that they would meet and marry another non graduate
19/20 x 19/20 in fact

I'm not missing out that part of it; that isn't the excluded class. The excluded class is children with either no parents who are graduates or one parent who is a graduate.

19/20 19/20 = 361/400, ie about 36/40 (or 90%). I would say the chance of having no parents who are graduates is actually higher, due to the tendency of graduates to marry graduates (and the less educated to meet and marry the less educated); it is probably more like 19/20 39/40 (761/800, or about 38/40) leaving the remaining 1 in 40 to have one graduate parent.

oh bother, my multiplying asterisks have made everything bold :(

and anyway I can't read my own scribble, that 761 is wrong. Should be 741/800 (I think) ie about 37/40, leaving 2 in 40 to have one graduate parent (which makes more sense). Anyway. Point is the same.

fairy nuff.
nowadays its 1 in 3 and if Bliar had ever had its way it would have risen to 1 in 2
it'll be back down to 1 in 6 within ten years

fivecandles I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. I'm responding to - and doubting - the suggestion that working class kids might not apply to RG universities or Oxbridge because they might "not like the very traditional courses offered by Oxbridge and RG universities."

If a working class kid is high ability, then they should have their choice of courses - both traditional and "courses that reflect the world in which we live and have changed their content and delivery in the last few decades".

Equally, these good modern courses should be attracting high ability middle class kids.

So I'm very at the proposition that there's something special that makes working class kids opt for modern rather than trad courses of the same calibre.

Of course if we're talking kids being steered away from trad courses by school or family who themselves (a) see many modern courses as lower calibre, and (b) have low expectations, then that's a different kettle of fish.

Such a lot of inverted snobbery on MN with regards to contemporary Oxford and Cambridge. Both universities are far more diverse than plenty of RG universities. And very welcoming to all comers too. Young clever people just need to apply and their teachers need to support them. And fabulously supportive financially; better than anywhere else.

I can see missing data. If data is missing, how much is wrong?

Yellowtip
which data is missing..... have you looked up your LEA on the by school list as they have less roundings....

and yes, the bit about Oxbridge that state school kids NEED to be aware of is that the deal for room hire makes it one of the cheapest universities to attend !

Just to add to what a couple of others have said regarding accessing education Out of Borough. There are a fair number of children living in Knowsley and accessing their education at Rainhill High (I think around 25% of the schools' pupils on role are from Knowsley?). Also De La Salle has around 10% of its pupils from Knowsley. Both schools are St Helens and are easily accessible/walking distance from Knowsley. Rainhill has a 6th form.

Also as previously stated, Carmel College certainly has its fair share of students from Out of Borough and offers excellent Further Education. I have no idea of the stats as to how many of these students, in either Rainhill or Carmel, go on to Oxbridge or RG universities though.

Utterly depressing stats from Reading- only the selective state schools had anyone going to a RG uni :( I don't know why this situation is allowed to continue. Am already thinking that in order not to have to move house to another area entirely we might have to tutor the DC. I was encouraged to apply to Oxbridge and couldn't imagine the boys not having the same opportunity if they were academic too.

Really MrsJamin? Only Reading Boys and Kendrick got people to RG? Not Highdown or Hugh Faringdon?

I am amazed by that (and pretty horrified).

Data are only for state schools, Yellowtip sends private, that may be the data gap she sees.