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

anna you are truly horribly fascinating to watch in action

Anna - if you are here for the debate then can I suggest you do so without resorting to personal attacks.

Debating is fun on MN and there is a long history on this site of enjoyable debates on a wide range of subject matters. They tend to turn sour though when people resort to personal attacks. They really are unnecessary and always tend to highlight those who have a poor grasp on the subject they are debating and/or a poor debating style.

Sorry just popping in and saw that Xenia said "I suppose the unfairness is that some peoplea re born with a brain that means they can't get a job that pays them £xxx per hour so in that sense life is unfair."

Um, no, that's not right; some people don't have the OPPORTUNITY to get - or even imagine getting - a job which pays them £xxx per hour. Which kind of brings us back to the original post about university admissions and school league tables...

Xenia, on the whole women choosing partners for their money thing we're just going to have to agree to differ. It is your OPINION that they do, it is my opinion that they do not and while you are not able to provide any evidence that they do, you, I and a number or posters on this thread alone are living proof that women can earn as much as men or more and can choose their partners for other reasons e.g. and very hopefully love. The very fact that so many women evidently do choose their partners for other reasons that their earning potential (and I know many women whose partners don't earn anything at all) should at least be enough to make you question that the fact that, in your opinion, women choose their parters for their ability to provide financially for them is somehow 'natural', 'bilogical', 'genetic'. What animals do in the wild and what we did 1000s of years ago like choosing a partner for his plumage or raping whoever the male takes a fancy to is not relevant in contemporary society. I wonder how your argument works when it comes to lesbians by the way but no let's not go there please, please let's not go over this one again.

'In the professions etc there is not really the pay gap except for women who choose not to ask for pay rises etc and do themselves down. The main problems seem to be at home - women doing most of the work at home which again they need to negotiate better with their other half where they choose to have an other half.'

But you talk as though these are individual problems that people can sort out by a chat at home you don't seem to realize that women not going for promotions may be their CHOICE, or maybe because they are discriminated against or intimidat4ed, or maybe the result of 1000s of years of patriarchy, likewise you refuse to acknowledge the difficulties of childcare (women may CHOOSE or may find it NECESSARY to take over the burden of childcare which can cost a small fortune) as a SOCIAL problem not an individual one. What do you think would and does happen if the average woman goes home and says to her husband that she wants him to do more at home? Don't you think these kinds of arguments go on all the time? Do you think a man who has been borught up to believe that housework and childcare are women's work (and have these gendered role models for his parents and his brothers and his siters and his grandparents) will just say, 'ok then'? And as I've said I actually think that men are victims of this situation as well as women are. What if a woman chooses not to go for a promotion because she doesn't want to work longer hours and be away from her kids (this is my position at the moment)? Is it that I am 'doing myself down' or is that I am looking after myself and my family int eh best way I am able to?

'They would pay my ex husband £Y an hour to tutor their children. I don't think that's unfair. I suppose the unfairness is that some peoplea re born with a brain that means they can't get a job that pays them £xxx per hour so in that sense life is unfair.'

But once again your implication is that everyone chooses a job with the aim of making money. In your view if you choose a job that doesn't pay well then you're stupid. I choose to be a teacher. It doesn't pay brilliantly but it is very rewarding for me. I am not motivated solely by money. You glossed over my story that when paying childcare and working part-time (which I chose to do so that I could also spend time with my kids and retain my sanity) I was left with about £100 a week. THis is the reality for many many women which means they generally end up giving up work for several years but then find it hard to get back into the workplace and then have missed out on promotions,t raining etc.

Agree Indiemum and there are very few people who are not born with the intellectual capacity to carry out a demanding and rewarding job but it is all about opportunities from birth not genes, not biology and that does bring us back to the beginning.

I don't disagree with you on some things. We can collectively try to get over that sexism, social conditioning that only women can care for small children and women belong at home. We can partly do that for now, in this transitional phase by making sure if there's a default as to who stays home it's the man, not the woman. Women collectively can as a group say - for the good of our granddaugthers we are going to do something we don't much like for the next two genersations and that's do better than men, work harder, work longer hours than them and refuse to do childcare or housework just to get that balance righted.

Instead they read Martha Stewart, stay home and get their breasts enlarged and skins fake tanned.

But in general I do think things are getting better - the new paternity leave right, more women doing better at work in most sectors,all those very low paid women in the NE etc successfully bringing their equal pay applications and many more men seeing housework and childcare after work and weekends when they have working wives in particular as a joint thing. I don't notice too much sexism amongst my children's student contemporaries.

indie, opportunities often aren't equal - I agree. But some things are inherent, if we're born with an IQ of 90 or a face like the back of a bus or a horrible nature such that no one ever wants to consort with us.

no no, don't agree with that last one though. i don't think we're largely blank slates which can be written upon. I think we differ widely - even just looking at my own children, similar genes, similar upbringing different people. No matter how well you tutor Prince Harry etc he could never be a leading UK QC and however much you trained me I could never be a great basketball player.

but Xenia very few people could be a basketball player, but really there are a lot of people who could be a solicitor but who never get the chance...

and don't forget that many women love staying home all the time or part-time - where in feminist writing does it say we HAVE to work in offices, long hours, and make lots of money? why is that necessarily something to aim for? i think feminism is about giving women the right to choose whatever they want, which could be staying at home, or working, or any combination of the two...

I don't see why they don't get the chance. Loads of people from comprehensives read law at university. It's not like we're some completely class bound society where you only get certain types of jobs if you're rich.

Oh, Xenia, it must be nice to be so blisfully naive and unaware of the harsh realities of modern life. You are fortunate enough not to know how hard it is to pay for childcare when you earn the minimum wage, you seem to thing that getting men to take an equal part in childcare and housework is a simple matter of sitting them down and having a chat. You obviously have never watched a child whose parents felt unable to look after him try to struggle through 3 different comprehensives including one in special measures while also living in a succession of different foster homes with no access to books or a pc. If you had you wouldn't say 'what's stopping them from becoming a solicitor?' If they have no bread let them eat cake!

'No matter how well you tutor Prince Harry etc he could never be a leading UK QC'

well that is a statement no one could disagree with- and surely something of an argument in itself against the 'fittest rising to the top' theory....

?You obviously have never watched a child whose parents felt unable to look after him try to struggle through 3 different comprehensives including one in special measures while also living in a succession of different foster homes with no access to books or a pc.?

An own goal, B&Wcat. Either
a) this child has been let down by the ?undervalued? do-gooders at Social Services and Dfes or
b) this child is beyond anyone's help, which agrees with Xenia?s premise that we are not all created equal

Sadly some families will always end up at the bottom of the pile, children of drug addicts, no support at home, very very poor or very low IQ. Sometimes good schools can almost literally save them. Yes, I know a bit about that. I also know quite a lot of successful people in the City who came from fairly poor backgrounds. It is easier to "rise" if that's the right word in 2007 Britain than in many countries.

As for why some of our royals are of particularly low intelligence and yet kept their money/assets I don't think that's typical of the country as a whole and I think things are improving. You used to have to pay to be trained as a solicitor so it was more often the preserve of the rich, and now they pay you whilst you're training.

Agree that a good school can save poor children-or good teachers anyway. My Father brought 4 of us up alone and REALLY struggled but fantastic teachers (and natural brains in all 4 of us) ensured we had a better start than we would have otherwise had. I in particular feel indebted to lovely, encouraging teachers in an average school who saw that I wanted to do well and had the ability to go to one of the best universities.

It's just a 'shame' that since I have such a strong maternal instinct that I find it difficult (almost impossible) to hand my babies over to someone else when they are so young-that is biology I can't fight

I really do wish there had been a subject such as 'Life Skills' on the curriculum. Kids like me have/had little experience of life beyond school. I wish I had been told that I couldn't have it all and been taught more about money/relationships/etiquette etc!!! I feel at 17 lots of people are really not ready to decide what they want to do with their life.

And so what if Harry will never be a QC, he is a soldier and very fit if you ask me

Xenia - If only we could all be solicitors - money for old rope, the times we have used one
a) have had to do most of the work ourselves and still been charged for it
or
b) have found mistakes on reading through contracts etc

He's gorgeous. And I may be wrong. He might be clever but have a specific learning difficulty which means he can't pass exams. You never know. His uncle is attractive too although playing around whilst his second wife had a young baby is not on.

Ah yes, life skills. Being taught to wire a plug in biology was pretty good and after GCSE we weren't allowed to go home to the end of term we had to stay at school and learnt bridge, the waltz etc etc. Some schools do try to teach life skills. Bedales is giving up GCSEs except for a core 4 subjects to allow more time for those and other types of things. Wellington has lessons in "happiness" I think.

I have 3 at university and I try to spend quite a bit of time talking to them about all these things and stuff like when is it best to have babies, men, work, choices. They know I had the first 3 in my twenties and I think leaving babies until you're 35+ can often mean you can't have them etc etc.

confused, sounds like you'd be a better solicitor than that lot. Then do it. You can do the exams etc part time. Lots of women with small children do it.

i find the whole 'biological superiority = money' argument which Anna and Xenia have been touting very spurious indeed. This culture massively rewards manic entrepreneurship and a certain drive toward wealth creation at all costs. No doubt these are admirable characteristics to SOME extent but they are not equivalent to or necessarily coexistent with intelligence.

I am thinking here of Jeffrey Archer among other well off, hyperconfident boors, and of all the not very bright but very confident, driven (usually, but not always, ex public school) blokes at the college I went to who have become extremely rich since (no women 'wealth-creators' there, presumably 'evolution' has selected against them....)

The outstandingly bright have almost without exception gone into professions such as medicine or law, or (gasp) the public sector (even, double gasp, teaching) where they will create considerably less wealth and, in the case of the teachers et.al., will not be able to ensure that their offspring perpetuate their 'evolutionary' advantage by entering the 'best' schools.

Some rich people are thick and others aren't. They don't deserve any better than the rest of us; they just get it, because they're rich. I can't understand why some rich people need so desperately to naturalise their economic advantages. Get over it; you're already ahead. Bragging is just ugly.

and Prince Harry gorgeous? surely some mistake???

Xenia - no thanks I'm quite happy spending my time treating the sick

Prince Harry gorgeous? A chacun son gout.
Who is this cheating uncle of his? Andrew? Xenia, spill the beans, what do you know about him that we don't know?

Don't know what you mean by an 'own goal' Fembear. Xenia was saying that everyone has the opportunity to become a solicitor and make piles of money and I was arguing that even if you wanted to become a solicitor and were motivated by making a load of money (as opposed to for example wanting to help others and discovering how the body works and becoming a nurse) then you might not find that you have the same opportunities as, for example, Xenia's kids have had what with a mother who is a successful role model, a supportive ambitious family background, a private education etc. My example of the boy who's been in foster care for most of his life (real person by the way one of many like him I've taught) certainly had the ability to be a solicitor or anything else that took his fancy but did not have the same kinds of opportunities. Obviously some kids can overcome the disadvantages of foster care (and there have been some shocking statistics about what kids in foster care manage to achieve academically lately), illiterate parents or whatever but they are spectacularly brave, often lucky (to find a teacher or girlfriend or someoen to 'sponsor' them for example), determined and rare. My dp teaches at a school for kids with EBD. Many of them are bright but without exception they have been so badly damaged by traumatic upbringings (parents in jail, abused by mother's new partner, mother offering them drugs from an early age to name a few) that they struggle to sit through a class let alone a set of exams (and coursework is still a requirement of most exams which for school refusers etc is a massive problem). So, again, I'm saying that one's fortunes in life are largely determined by your family background (class, money and love rather than biology or genes). And I challenge those of you who automatically assume that the kids who do not go on to succeed academically or in their careers are let down by professionals (teachers, social workers whatever). Quite probably some of them are (and it's likely that this is the case because those professionals don't have the resources or training or time to adequately deal with them) but most of the time kids who under-achieve significantly have been let down before they ever get to school (by their parents, their communities, the fact that they have been born into poverty).

Muminbrum, that will be Charles Spencer Xenia is referring to I suspect. Andrew has never remarried

Whywhy, thankyou for putting this so well:

'Some rich people are thick and others aren't. They don't deserve any better than the rest of us; they just get it, because they're rich. I can't understand why some rich people need so desperately to naturalise their economic advantages. Get over it; you're already ahead. Bragging is just ugly.'

Yes, Earl Spencer.
bc, I know the thread title may suggest this but I wasn't suggesting teachers do a bad job. I do think educating very bright poor children separately from not so bright poor children really can help those who have the potential to be solicitors etc and I think they'd be better being put into grammar or private schools at 7 or 11 than kept with all the others.

Blair presumably goes along with this to some extent. Hasn't he just announced some plan to put the brightest 5 year olds on a fast track, summer schools, special online tuition etc.

The very poorest will always struggle but there are a lot of people in the middle at many state/comprehensive schools who aren't from foster homes etc who do indeed have the chance to be doctors, lawyers or whatever.

And by the way whoever did women down below, there are now more female millionaires under 40 in the UK than men which may of coures be due so sexism - women leave work, have babies and work for yourself which is where in general more money is to be made.