Sixth Forms feeding to Russell Group : SUCH misleading headlines

[TalkinPeace2]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21162960
www.channel4.com/news/a-quarter-of-schools-fail-to-give-pupils-any-decent-gcses
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/24/school-league-tables-one-universities_n_2541051.html

The trouble with each of the above headlines is that they are implying that it is a problem with the Sixth form sector rather than a strength.

Taking my home county as an example.

Peter Symonds, Barton Peverill, Brockenhurst College and the like got loads and loads of kids into RG Unis.
That is because they specialise in A levels.

Totton College, Eastleigh College and Sparsholt College are in the "25%" because they specialise in other types of courses

• that keep our cars on the road, our houses maintained and our farm animals healthy.

One of the weaknesses of NHS hospitals is they try to be all things to all people.
One of the strengths of 6th form colleges is that they specialise.
And long may it continue.

Interesting.
All Mumnetters must have academic kids so do not care that the vocational colleges are being slagged off without good reason.

That is a flaw if non A-level establishments included, but the point is still that there are a lot of A-level schools that aren't producing many high grades in facilitating subjects. A local school to me which does A-levels (not mainly other things, there's another college in a nearby town for more practical courses) managed just 2 children who passed with AAB or better in facilitaing subjects which isn't very good at all imo when you consider it's the only sixth form in a reasonable sized town.

Neither A-level institutions, not non A-level candidates in those places which offer a mix, are included. So I suppose that's why this coverage is focussed on A Level achievement.

It's very misleading. I teach in a school with a very small sixth form. We are in a grammar area, and so our sixth form has to offer a mixture of academic and vocational courses if we are to remain open. We send about 15 students to university every year (in context - last year's Yr 13 consisted of 30 students. 16 went to university) One of last year's boys is at Cardiff doing Accountancy. He didn't get AAB in "facilitating" subjects. He got AA in Double Applied Business Studies, B in Maths and then a Distinction for BTEC Sport. Cardiff still took him. So the assumption that RG universities will only take students with high grades in specific subjects is eroneous.

Ditto EvilTwins. I have students who have been offered places by RG group universities. Forexample AAB ( standard offer) for Exeter with photography, psychology and philosophy and ethics as the subjects. Another to Birmingham with a standard grades offer -her subjects were sports science, psychology and biology. I could offer many more examples. I had an applicant for Oxford last year who got a place reading philosophy with A*AB - psychology, philosophy and ethics and English. She had AS in Chemistry - and had to pass maths GCSE to matriculate. She came into our sixth form from HS and didnt have GCSE maths. ( In fact she only had two GCSE's).

So if a college doesn't offer A levels it's not included and if it offers a mix then only the students who took A levels are included. The question is if you should actually need to be taking 3 or more A levels to count or if students like Evil's example who only sit one A level are counted? Maybe they should only count students who are sitting exclusively A level qualificatons?

I don't think they're saying you have to have those grades for a RG uni, just that those are the quals they'd like to see more students studying and scoring highly in.

Bio, Chem and Psychology is a perfectly acceptable combination for medicine anywhere, but as Psych isn't 'facilitaing' A A A* in those subjects wouldn't count. The measure is certainly not perfect - I think AAB with 2 out of 3 grades in facilitating subjects would have been a better measure myself.

But you are all missing the point
www.sparsholt.ac.uk/highereducation
RG is an utter irrelevance to this INCREDIBLY highly regarded college - that has multiple applicants for every place

and leaves all the university shit to PSC

This MNer is a furrener who did not know there was such a thing as a vocational college. Really, I have to take what we get and hope that DC will apply themselves.

But you don't "take what you get" if your area has sixth form colleges. They do not have catchments. You choose the college in your area that best matches your DCs aptitudes.

Or the one that offers the course they want or that you can afford for your teen to travel to. Around here choice in education only exists if one can afford to travel.

Every county is different. I guess I'm lucky to live in one that encourages subsidised transport, and the remote colleges have their own buses etc.
Intake areas 35 miles across are normal here.
And none of the state schools (other than Catholic) have their on 6th form so its the same for everybody.

Own buses!? Wow, where are you?

Hampshire.

well I'm in hants and our local comp has a 6th form

Ah, I take it back, there may be some subsidy for college students wanting to go to a college out of catchment. I would have to work thru the forms to be sure about that, though.

But not subsidised for transport to out of catchment education at primary or secondary level (unless relevant SEN).

true, a few do
www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/education/school_tables/secondary/12/html/850.stm?compare=
BUT

my point is that the fact that 1 in 4 of the sixth form colleges concentrate on other than Russell Group entrance is NOT a problem for educational standards.

You are completely right that these are misleading headlines. The news is based on a new measure in the A-level league tables of numbers gaining AAB in 'three facilitating subjects' (maths, sciences, languages, Eng lit, history or geography) rather than numbers getting offers or places at Russell Group universities.

Meanwhile, Russell Group advice for students considering many courses (obviously not e.g. medicine, dentistry, etc.) is to take at least TWO of these subjects out of their three A-levels, but not necessarily all three:

www.russellgroup.ac.uk/media/informed-choices/InformedChoices-latest.pdf

In fact, it also advises on A-level subjects not on that 'facilitating' list that are useful for certain courses, e.g. economics (for accountancy or business studies), politics (for language degrees), design technology (for architecture and some engineering courses), religious studies (for art history or philosophy), etc. But students aiming for those subjects with perfectly acceptable choices would be counted as failures in the league tables if media reports are to be believed!

The head of Tiffin School has expressed her horror over this misinterpretation of Russell Group advice and devaluing of subjects like music, art, etc. - where are our teachers going to come from?

So how is that measure supposed to work for those going to study a non-facillitating subject at an RG University, when the A level requirements include same subject?
ie. Music generally requires Music + any 2 other subjects.

I think the answer is, the results just wouldn't be counted. It's as crude as that - Music isn't on that list, unlike Geography, so your three A*s wouldn't feature in the table, whether you were going to study Music, Anglo Saxon or PPE and you had Maths and French as your other two subjects. Gove's instantly created a 'higher Ebacc' measure for A-levels which strips out all creative, social science and technology subjects and the media have reported this unquestioningly as another failure of state schools.

But if you look at independent schools' results you realise just how pointless this measure is - Stowe School got 9% (97% - 3 A-levels), Lichfield Cathedral school got 0% (86% - 3 A-levels).

How is it supposed to work for people who want to do OTHER than an academic degree after 6th form?
The headlines will make them feel like failures
BUT without vocational courses we'll have rather a shortage of service staff in this country.

Yep, 52% go on to higher education, including 8% to Russell Group and 1% to Oxbridge (see this DfE release). This is Gove's obsession with a tiny elite again. Those who need those Russell Group places in order to become bankers, doctors, lawyers, are already likely to be very clear about the subject options they need to take. He's not interested in nurses, teachers, social workers, engineers, project managers, marketing managers, web designers or all those other jobs which require degrees and/or further professional training - for which Psychology, Business Studies, Design Technology or whatever related A-level may just be more useful than that second or third 'facilitating subject'.

thank you for those stats, MuminLondon, MN is pretty awful for being obsessed with that top 1-9%, too.

What is really dangerous about the measure is that is misrepresents Russell Group advice. But the reporting is dangerous too - no journalists have challenged the DfE spin. Those who can see it putting off pupils from studying Music or Art etc. for no reason, like the head of Tiffin, have to resort to a comment on their websites.