7% at comps get AAB

[Judy1234]

Just looking at today's FT schools tables/reports. Only 7% of comprehensives get pupils with grades AAB at A level. 62% of pupils get that at the best 50 independent schools (about 70 such pupils a year per school) and about 31 from selective grammar schools.

However the top 10 comps have 31% getting AAB which isn't too bad and the bottom 50 comps have 1% of pupils getting AAB.

The best comperhensive - Watford Grammar gets 8 Oxbridge offers a year.

But then surely you'd expect that. If the school isn't selective, whether it's fee paying or not, you can't expect to get lots of high a level grades so why does the Government want more children proportionately from comprehensives and (new rule) whose parents didn't get to university? It's like saying I want people who aren't right for this given preference over those that are. That these really bright pupils from the state grammar school whose parents both went to univesrity will not be allowed in but these rather thick children who have left it too late to be brought up to an Oxbridge standard age 19 will get preference.
www.ft.com/cms/s/4037c7f2-ceae-11db-b5c8-000b5df10621.html

My husband was earning less than me on the day we got married. And he rarely wears a suit. Not everyone is financially driven.

Thanks. I looked at the other thread.
On women and men for the first itme ever last year girls up to age 25 earn more than boys by about 40p an hour. So we might be seeing a change but they still tend to marry someone a few years older on average which alone can ensure he is ahead in career terms and earns more and when it comes to a sensible economic decision about who gives up work it makes more sense to give up the lower female salary.

More scare-mongering, what a surprise (especially unusual considering it's from The Times)! And surprise, surprise the people who are exaggerating and terrified of the idea that when judging whether to give 2 students with the same grades a place at univerity they might take into consideration whether student a's grades might be more of a reflection of the advantages of a middle-class, educated family and a private school education while student b's grades might indicate an amazing intelligence and a struggle to achieve good results in spite of being in 5 different foster homes and 3 different schools including one in special measures, are, knock me over with a feather, people from private schools. Like you, Xenia, these people feel threatened by challenges to elitism. After all, what's the point of paying all that money for a private education if some state school ruffian might actually be able to beat your child to a place at university?

'On women and men for the first itme ever last year girls up to age 25 earn more than boys by about 40p an hour. So we might be seeing a change'

Ah, now Xenia will that change be down to the fact that we are finally living in a more equal society of have we being doing some subtle evolving that I don't know about? Hmmm...

That should say 'or' not 'of'.

'but they still tend to marry someone a few years older on average which alone can ensure he is ahead in career terms'

But is that cos we're all gold-digging bitches as you seem to think we are who can't seem to see past men's wallets and suits (which don't do it for me by the way)? I think not.

'and earns more and when it comes to a sensible economic decision about who gives up work it makes more sense to give up the lower female salary.'
Oh, that'll be the lower female salary owing to women's biological inferiority will it? And that 'sensible economic decision' will be made as a result of our evolved minds?

I must admit to being taken aback by the assertion that all of us women marry older men with more earning potential.

I met my now husband at university - both of us from very working class backgrounds, first in the family at uni etc. When we left uni and started work, I earned more than him (not masses more, but more). Even when we had children and I started working from home part-time, I was still earning more per hour than him.

Most of our friends met at uni too, so we are all of a similar age and there was no question of anyone choosing or even subconciously gravitating towards someone who earned more.

Funnily enough, those of our uni friends who are now earning most and in more prestigious positions are those that seemed the least likely to do so, and in fact didn't achieve the best degrees. So anyone choosing partners on that basis would have been either very disappointed or pleasantly surprised!

Oh, and on having children we didn't 'give up the lower salary'. I gave up full-time work firstly because that's what we both wanted, but secondly because I was able to continue working but from home and at times that fitted perfectly around the children.

My husband's job wouldn't have enabled him to do any of that, so by me staying at home we were actually better off financially.

Xenia - in the wider demography I am sure you are right. But I have a feeling that MN-ers are a funny bunch - very many of the MN-ers I hobnob with, on and off board, earn more than their DH's, before and after children.

I did and do.

When I married DH I earned lots more than him and had a fairly good career/salary. Later the situation changed.

In the wider demography I am right. I don't want it to be so and I hope it's changing and women and men make sexually neutral decisions about who has children and women stop looking for stable supporting richer men to keep them in that dreadful kept economic sense.

On the university thing I don't think private school children, the 8% will suffer at all. They are widely ahead anyway for all kinds of reasons. Surely it's the second generation of university entrants whose parents struggled there, did well and now find their children discriminated against even though they were at a very average comp.

At present the universities will look at someone doing really well at a school which is hopeless which I hope applies to a private as well as a state school but I doubt it. There's nothing wrong with that and I think that bit of the system works fine on the whole.

There might be an argument that in general children of those who went to university particularly from the state sector are clever and therefore have clever children so we should be favouring them for getting into university rather than discriminating against them.

If things got too biased which they won't, the richer parents would just move their children out to private universities or abroad., The poor educated middle class won't have that option. But I agree it's largely scaremongering and I doubt it will have much effect on the brightest pupils.

You are right that men still by and large earn more than women but you are not right in your reasons why this is the case. You assume it is because women 'target' men who earn more and will provide for them. And you explain this by our old friend 'evolution' and 'female instincts'. You totally ignore my points that women earn less because we still live in a patriarchal society which means women continue to earn less than men for exactly the same jobs or similar types of work so that as in the case I mentioned before a school care-taker (male) is paid more than a dinner-lady (female). Jobs which are done by mainly by women are under-paid and undervalued like cleaning but also child-care which as we all know can be highly skilled and nursery nurses etc are now often highly qualified. Many women are not motivated by money when they choose their career. In some cases this is because they have low aspirations and are not encouraged to aim high by their parents, peers and teachers but in many many cases they choose careers which will make them happy and good for them except they suffer for it financially. And when women have children they are expected to bear the brunt of child-care, employers are not family friendly, men and women both still suffer from prejudices and stereotypes about 'maternal instinct' blah blah. Maybe some women do need financial support which they may get from a partner but this is likely to be because the job they choose or are forced into is so badly paid and that has nothing to do with 'nature' or 'evolution'. Where I live in the north west women have a proud history of working to support themselves and their families often as chief breadwinner in't mills etc.

Right-on Blackandwhite

So you're really saying women have only themselves to blame because they're so stupid as to pick low paid careers, in effect? Or do they pick what they enjoy because they know they can hook some poor man doing very much what he doesn't like but has to keep doing to feel the greedy mouths of the children and wife who feed off him?

I earn more than my Dp, we're not married but i think it still counts? It has alwasy been the case that I earn more, pre children and now after 2 dc.

We're not doing very well here. All women earn more than their men.... laughing as I type... but I am certain whatever bc says that there are plenty of studies that women however much they don't intend to, gravitate towards relatively successful men who will provide for them and that men don't. Men will say in survey after survey it doesn't matter what she earns (but it does how she looks and other things too - some like clever and/or nice women etc) and women will look for someone who might be a good reliable provider.

Also studies show that women typically mate with good but rather dull providers but want and have sex and even have children with other men who are dangerous instable etc. Fascinating areas.

I'm obviously not typical then

Xenia it's really no surprise that most women's husbands earn more than the women and that women gravitate towards men who can and may go on to 'provide for them' as you put it since on average men continue to earn more than women. What I am continuing to challenge is your assumption that women are attracted to their partners BECAUSE of their money. You, I and others on this thread are proof that this is not the case. I have seen no evidence even anecdotal evidence to suggest that this is the case. And your earlier post both shows a misunderstanding of my posts and your continued low opinion of human beings and belief that they are limited to their bodies and their hormones like animals.

'So you're really saying women have only themselves to blame because they're so stupid as to pick low paid careers, in effect?'
Absolutely not. I'm saying hundreds of years of patriarchy are to blame for the fact that jobs which are mainly done by women (cleaning, some sorts of factory work, child-care and teaching to a lesser extent)are under-valued and under-paid. I DO NOT believe that women are 'stupid' to pick low paid careers and again you show your values when you suggest that anyone who is not motivated solely or primarily by money must be lacking in intelligence. In my copy of this week's TES I'm told that nursery workers find their job more satisfying that many other jobs. So obvisously many women would rather choose job satisfaction than wealth. Good for them I say. As a teacher it's pretty obvious that I would also choose job satisfaction over wealth. BUT I know (from what I read and also from my experience as a teacher) that many girls (who are now out performing boys academically at all levels including university and for the 1st time we even have 50% of entrants to medicine as women) continue to have low aspirations because of their families, peers, images of women in the media, weird ideas about what women are 'biologically' equipped to do or whatever. I know of at least one potential Oxbridge student who intended to finish her studies after A Level and get a job in a nursery. Now if she's happy that's fine but she WILL be underpaid and undervalued and that's a shame.

'Or do they pick what they enjoy because they know they can hook some poor man doing very much what he doesn't like but has to keep doing to feel the greedy mouths of the children and wife who feed off him?'

Again, I find the way you characterise women as superficial and selfish gold-diggers offensive. Women pick jobs they enjoy because they enjoy them and because they, like me and obviously unlike you, are not motivated solely by money. I admit many women do have low aspirations and I continue to say that many occupations done by women are badly paid BECAUSE they are done by women (and not because they are not skilled, qualified and valuable). I also recognize that many men are put under pressure to earn more to compensate for women's lack of earnings (either because their job is badly paid or because of maternity leave or because the women give up paid work or go back part-time) and this can cause a lot of trouble for themselves and their families. I personally don't believe that a society which is structured so that men are pressured to work ever longer hours and are largely absent from their family and women are forced to give up work or reduce their hours because they earn less and are expected to carry most of the burden of child-care and housework is helpful for family life. In my ideal world men and women would both share paid work (working shorter and roughly equal hours) and child-care but in order for that to happen women would need to earn similar wages to men and they don't.

To put it another way, Mary and Fred have the same qualifications, are equally presentable and skilled and are looking for jobs. There are various ways this can go. Mary and Fred may get the same job and it's still possible that Mary would be paid less for it. Or it's quite possible that Mary chooses a different job from Fred which is less well paid. Or Mary and Fred may get the same of different jobs and be paid the same. What if Mary and Fred marry and have children? Mary takes maternity leave and her earnings are less. Fred starts to work longer hours to compensate. Then Mary decides to go back to work part-time (it's what her mum did and all her friends have done). She no longer feels able to go for promotions because she doesn't want to work longer hours since she has to look after her child and is having sleepless nights anyway. Fred goes in for and gets a promotion. Now that Fred has a promotion he doesn't feel able to take time off work when his child is ill. Mary's employees start to get annoyed when Mary takes another day off because her child is sick. When Mary takes her second maternity leave she realizes that it's not worth her going back to work at all since her salary wouldn't cover the child-care costs. Fred goes for another promotion...

I meant to say that this was never Mary and Fred's game plan. They were both well qualified and ambitious. Neither believed that bringing up children was solely women's work. But the way the workplace currently works and is not family friendly and mothers are the most discriminated gorup in society means this is what does happen in spite of what anyone might want or plan for or not plan for.

But why is Mary wanting to be home with the chdilren and isn't Fred pushing her into that. The work place is as father unfriendly as mother unfriendly, in fact often more so - it's harder for fathers to ask for time off for child care than mothers because of societal norms, surely?

I still think most women without realising it pick potentially or actually higher earning partners but may well not want to admit it. They aren't gold diggers at all. It's just inherent in them and is a means to ensure their children are provided for.

I admit it freely - I love it that my partner has a great job and earns lots and lots and lots of lovely money and that I don't have to worry where the next meal is coming from (or even whether we can afford to buy a second home) while my children are small and I WANT and CHOSE to stay at home for a few years.

Absolutely agree Xenia that the workplace is more father unfriendly than mother unfriendly. That's because employers refuse to acknowledge the importance of fathers(meaning the role fathers hmight ave in childcare or in simply being with their families rather than simply as breadwinners). Employers, fathers, men and even women and mothers assume that women will do most of the childcare which is one reason why women are discriminated against by their employers (if they get employed at all). And, as you and I have both agreed, it often makes financial sense for the woman to give up work to look after the children since she earns less. But this causes huge amounts of trouble for men and their families as men increasingly need to work longer hours to compensate for their wives lack of earning in the first place of loss of earning when she may feel forced or choose to give up work. Men both create and suffer from this culture but I accept that it would be a brave man to stand up to his employers and refuse to go to an evening meeting, weekend conference, breakfast appointment because he had to or watned to put his kids to bed or feed them or just be with them. Women can and do this out of necessity but this pisses off their employers (which is one reason why they are discriminated against which means they earn less or find it harder to get jobs and so the cycle continues).

I was outraged on another thread a few weeks ago when a poster suggested I wasn't able to do my job properly because I am a mum (as if a huge percentage of teachers are not mums!) when nobody would ever suggest this to my dp or any man. Yet in my house we share childcare, housework and paid work equally so fatherhood affects dp's ability to teach (and I would argue in some ways for the better) as much as motherhood affects mine (ditto). We work more or less the same hours (though I have to take a part-time salary to do this while he brings home a full-time one but this is to do with the differences in conditions between 6th form and school education and being an english teacher - me - and a PE teacher - him - rather than any kind of gendered discrimination).

If we were to continue Mary and Fred's story (which I imagine many women here will be able to identify with) then we might go on to say that Mary may or may not feel satisfied at home with her kids (having decieded it makes not financial sense to go back to work) but with every year that passes she loses confidence about her ability to get back into employment (and misses training and experience which would keep her skills up to date). And while Fred continues to work ever longer hours and may or may not continue to get promoted increasingly the responsibility for childcare falls to her. Mary gets the kids ready for school but also goes to paretns' evenings. And Fred misses out on his kids and family time. He might feel increasingly resentful that Mary gets to stay at home (and this might cause family arguments). He is increasignlyt stressed at work but can't get off the ladder and now has more bills to pay. The kids wish their dad was around more for rough and tumble (fathers apparently play more with their kids and the play is more physical and is really important for kids' develoopment). I know lots of Marys and lots of Freds. Both often complain about the way things have turned out and I have sympathy with both. Freds' problems are often ignored because it's assumed that men all like to compete and like to work (when they may hate it). Men are frightened to go part-time or cut their hours or give up their work because they think they will be considered less manly. Women may feel there's something wrong with them cos they don't feel just being at home is fulfilling but they don't feel able to do their jobs properly either because of the demands at home etcetc.

In my ideal world men and women would share paid work and childcare equally but both work shorter hours to spend more time with the kids. But this is only an option when women are paid as much as men which they're not.

I never encountered wage discrimination at work. I was paid exactly the same as my male colleagues at the same level. In fact, given that there were fewer women than men where I worked, women tended to have a higher chance of promotion than men.

However, I did encounter OPPORTUNITIES discrimination. There were lots of assignments that women could not go on (eg to Saudi Arabia) and that held them back, because they didn't gain experience as quickly as men. And I encountered discrimination on grounds of PHYSICAL STRENGTH. Men were just a whole lot better at coping with 75-hour weeks and 4-hour nights for months on end.

In most business environments in the UK there genuinely isn't much sex discrimination at all. What interests me more is why on earth Mary and not her husband is taking the time off to be with the children? After 1 st April would she take 6 months maternity leave and then him 6 months paternity and if not why not? Is that her conditioning, the fact she thinks mothers not fathers ought to be with children, the fact she can't manage at 6 months with a before work, lunch time and evening breastfeed or what (not that most Englishwomen breastfeed after 6 months anyway so that's a bit of a red herring).

Mary should sort out her relationship with Fred and ensure he is as involved as she is. Before she marries him she should talke about which of them might stay home with the children if they want one of them too. If Fred thinks a parent shoudl be home she could suggest in that case it be him.

I don't know how many times I can continue to repeat the same points in different ways. And I so love your simplistic response to Mary and Fred's problems (which are actually the problems of many thousands of working mothers and fathers all over the country and are more specific to this country than others since we have such long working hours and such poor provision for childcare). I really thought we'd established at length and several times that Mary (as is the case with many, many women just browse around this site) was forced to give up work following child number 2 since her salary barely covered the childcare costs. Fred had to compensate for Mary's loss of earnings (and find ways of providing for his growing family) by working ever longer hours (most jobs are already a minimum of 9-5 and this means leaving home at 8 and getting home at 6 the very hours when young children are awake). This is the reality for many families.

When I went back to work part-time following the birth of dd2 childcare cost £750 a month while I was earning £1100 and it probably wasn't worth the effort involved especially given that I continued breastfeeding dd2 till she was 13 months from 6 pm every evening and at night and still trying to mark in the evenings too. It certainly wasn't worth it financially and it was a really difficult period in our life as a family. The only reason I stuck at it was cos I wanted to keep my job (that specific job not any teaching job). With this kind of financial strain (and teachers earn a pretty good wage compared to many people and like I said I have total support from my dp which many women don't) many women don't carry on with their jobs (especially if they're under-paid and under-valued in the first place which many jobs done by women are).

But this is all getting away from your argument of about 100 posts ago which was that women look, sorry 'target' men who will provide for them. They don't. It's just that the way our society works currently means that women still earn less than men for many different reasons and even if Mary and Fred or Samantha and Jerry start off on the same wage (which it's highly likely they won't even if she is more qualified than he is and especially if she works in child-care or as a cleaner, a dinner lady or even as a teacher) after they have children it's very unlikely that this will remain the case.

As you say things are changing (because society is changing not because we're evolving!). Several of my female colleagues are the chief breadwinners while their dps stay at home and other families, like mine, share childcare and paid work and as conditions improve gradually these kinds of models will become more common. Our behaviours and choices are NOT defined by our bodies and our hormones.