71% of 'top people' went to private school, or grammar school

[joanbyers]

Link:
www.suttontrust.com/research/the-educational-backgrounds-of-the-nations-leading-people/leading-people-report.pdf

"Ten leading independent schools accounted for 12% of the leading people for which schools data was available. These are: Eton College; Winchester College; Charterhouse School; Rugby School; Westminster School; Marlborough College; Dulwich College; Harrow School; St Paul?s Boys? School; Wellington College (see table 1 for top 100 schools). "

It's interesting that these leading schools are pretty much ALL boarding schools, the significance of which is that the fees tend to be around £30k/year (so I reckon this is as much about parental connections as anything else)

Wellington does not have a glittering academic reputation, sending handfuls to Oxford. Charterhouse, on £32k/year, has a fraction of the Oxbridge admissions of the nearby Royal Grammar School, Guildford (fees only £13k/year) - which is present in the list, at #58, but behind schools for the rich but dim such as Bradfield

The leading independent schools that aren't exclusively boarding schools (and therefore implying super-rich parents) are all in London, which is home of the elite.

The leading comps are Holland Park School, where lefties send their kids for ideological reasons and which has had £10s of millions lavished on it, and Haverstock School, which is likewise a popular choice with the left-wing elite.

Just 10% of 'top people' attended a comprehensive.

Of course these figures are calculated many years in arrears, so not the best guide for the future, but the 44% of leading people who attended private schools I guess will increase, as the 27% who went to grammars die off (i.e. most of the grammar schools listed are now comps)

@losing - At DS's school 98% gets As and Bs. I think about %95 get straight As. Get your marks up to 50%. Then come back and tell me that my methods sucks.

I think a great many people including the students themselves would think that your very narrow focus on just two universities at your son's age is unhealthy, because there is a remote possibility that he won't get in. What message does he get then? There was the same sort of ambition by proxy displayed on the UCAS thread last year which unfortunately for the DC ended in tears.

Much better surely to hedge your bets? Very good students from a lot of universities can still nab top jobs.

How selective is your ds' indie? Also your argument about catchment no longer holds up about inner city schools where some are doing really well. Would never expect a comp to get 50% As. That is ridiculous as they are mixed ability. How selective is your son's indie?

Hermione I don't think it's that most employers are duped as you put it. More that they use selcetive schools and Oxbridge as a filter.

The perception is that 10As is no indication of employability. As losing points out, 15% of a cohort can get them wihtout too much work. So what do they prove? Nada. Not high intellect. Not capacity to work.

So they use selctive highly selective schools and Oxbridge as a better measure. Not only to assess intellect but also to assess ability to work very evry hard under pressure. The later is probably somehting employers are more bothered about to be honest.

It's the same way most publishers will only accept manuscripts from agents they know and trust. It's not that someone without an agent couldn't have written a work of genius, it's just that in a life where time is your most preciosu commodity you gratefuly use any filter you have faith in.

@yellowtip - There is a difference between 'You didn't get Oxbridge?? You are such a disappointment' attitude and a 'You didn't get Oxbridge? Never mind. At least you tried. x is just as good' attitude. I obviously fall into the latter :)

@losing - There were about 800 going for 150 places. By that measurement, it's not as selective as many of the super selective London state schools.

Before you rush to tell me that of course my selective school gets better results by just being selective with the intake, that wasn't the point I was making.

That point has just been made by wordfactory which is that 15% getting As is not a valid basis for going 'Ha! In ya 2 hours homework face APMF!'

The top streams in our dcs comp get excellent results. Around 5 go to Oxbridge every year, many more to Russell group.

There is no private schooling locally and so everyone (professionals, managers, retail staff, farmers, long term unemployed, teachers) sends their dcs to our comp, whether they are academically minded or have severe learning difficulties. We have orchestras, bands, chess, athletics, team sports, prize giving, Duke of Edinburgh Awards, drama and loads more.

That is how a comp should work, and they will never be truly comprehensive until all children including those of policy makers go to them. I do think private schools are a very divisive force in society.

I went to a comp with my sister, my brothers went to a top private boys' school on scholarship. Our girls' private school at the time was poor for science so I was taken out of there age 6, despite being offered scholarship.

We all came out with straight As and all studied Medicine at highly competitive Uni. At least 5 in my year went to Oxford, loads to Russell group, and some to borstal, YTS and everything in between.

My dd at her comp does at least 2 hours of homework plus music practice. I don't understand what that has to do with private or comp.

Quite Ox. Isn't two hours pretty standard in Y9/10/11? I'd have thought so.

Well losing says not. And certainly the DC in my extended family do nowhere near that! They consider my own DC under the kosh and not having a life to speakof

I don't think that 2 hours homework each night is standard in comprehensives. If it is then, if exam result reports are to be believed, a lot of comprehensives don't have much to show for it.

My y11 certainly does some every night, not always two hours, but quite often works all Saturday or Sunday afternoon. She just does it til it's done, I've never thought to count or complain.

APMF, not all dcs even in a great comp will get great results. Not all will have great situations at home in which to study and there is a normal distribution in the population of academic potential. There is an learning support and autistic unit in our school which would celebrate a year12 learning to write their own name.

Selective schools select out the equivalent of the top two streams in a comp; that is why they appear to do better. If our top two streams went private next year, the school results would fall statistically. However, it would still be a great school for all abilities and backgrounds, and able to teach any more high ability dcs who enrol.

Two hours of homework is only useful if the student is self motivated and learning effectively. Sitting at a desk for two hours is no magic bullet.

Exactly steaming.

No ones counting. The point is they want to learn and succeed.

Btw APMF Waterloo Road is a work of fiction

TOSN I wish my bloody extended family would take a leaf out of your book! They never pass an opportunity to tell me that my DC are working too hard. That they have no life.

Is the idea that finishing what she needs to do is a bit minimal, and that in a better school she would be set more, better and harder work which she couldn't finish in less than two hours?

Waterloo road, fiction? Don't be daft! Certainly at the dds' school there is one member of staff doing all the admin, seven teachers, complete freedom to interpret uniform to taste, and all ten members of the sixth form do the same seven subjects together. Was gutted when they announced the school was closing and sold the land for flats all in one day, but have high hopes of the 'business woman' who's been loitering these last few months....

Am I right in thinking your dc are year 9 ish, word? I can't remember how much dd was doing then, but I generally just trust her to know how much time she needs and then do it.

Original

But they do have small class sizes, though...

TOSN yes year 9.

To be honest homework is mixed. Some pices are definitely 'get this done' jobs. You know, learn this vocab, write up this graph, finish this maths exercise. Other stuff is less utilitarian and prescriptive...hence seems to take up more time.

In actual fact my DC don't work that hard. They seem to fit in loads of other stuff and spend huge swathes of time watching I'm A Celebrity and eating crisps.

Even smaller , after the lorry incident.....

Off course selective schools do better overall because they have a selective intake. I've never heard an indie parent argue otherwise. Yet posters insist on pointing it out to us as if it was news to us.

I was simply making the point that many private schools have a rigorous academic calendar and if one's attitude as a parent is that homework gets in the way of scouts then one shouldn't be moaning that private schools kids are unfairly favoured by Oxbridge.

I used to find then, I think, that the stuff which took the time and stressed her out was the second type you describe: art projects and stuff. But she has dropped most of that stuff, though we do have the odd maths-induced meltdown instead.

Oh, I hadn't read that post about scouts causing failure to go to Oxbridge.

Yes, that's clearly ridiculous. At least we agree on something.

The killer this half term has been the Gothic Literature project. DD settled on a reading list that was too ambitious IMVHO. I know it's hard to justify leaving out some novels/shorts...but you have to.

Lesson learned.

No doubt my family will have somehtig to say about all these books school is making my DD read! And they're not even on the curriculum so clearly pointless.

I think just Twilight, with perhaps one or two of the House of Night series for comparison, will be just fine, Word......