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

'It is easier to "rise" if that's the right word in 2007 Britain than in many countries.'

Actually Britain has one of the lowest rates of social mobility in Europe. I think the Fawcett society has some interesting stuff on this.

Then you almost seem to be saying the opposite of what you started off by saying Xenia. You and I agree that if you put most kids (from a very early age) in a loving home with a bit of money and supportive parents and sent them to good schools they'd do well. That's a far cry from saying that whether you're rich or poor is down to evolution!

I have to go to bed. I've got teaching and zillions of essays to mark tomorrow. This is interesting but time consuming.

Sorry meant Fabian society and can't find it now.

This is it. Britain and the US have the lowest rate of social mobility and it's declining. www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndEvents/archives/2005/LSE_SuttonTrust_report.htm

WhyWhy

"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."

Fantastic!

I still don't think it's that bad. The Sutton Trust I think put part of the blame on the loss of the grammar school route I thought. They certainly found that fewer poor clever children are at univesrities now than in the 1960s and if yo look at successful people from those backgrounds in politics, business and the media the working class lad made good usually got where he is because of good teachers, a great grammar school and a good university.

interesting- probably should start another thread to debate selective education...

It was plucking the brightest out of the mire and into the middleclass state grammar schools which seems to work quite well. But you did make those children different from their parents in a sense which is another issue and those left behind felt a bit rotten about it.