40% of top grades to private pupils

[Judy1234]

That's astonishing - 70% of physics teachers in the private sector have a physics degree and 30% in state schools.

44% of A grades in French and German to private pupils.

40% of A grades in science and languages from private schools.

Yet they educate 7% of children.

" Private school pupils earn 40pc of top grades

By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph

Private school pupils win 40 per cent of all the A grades awarded in England in science and modern languages A-levels, figures have shown.

With the independent sector educating just 7 per cent of children, the statistics demonstrate hugely disproportionate achievement at the highest level in some subjects.

The dominance of private school pupils in two major areas of study helps to explain the difficulties that leading universities face when trying to increase their state schools intake. Admission tutors seeking the best-qualified candidates struggle to meet Government benchmarks for the proportion of undergraduates from comprehensives and poorer backgrounds and, in some departments, private school pupils vastly outnumber state school ones.
advertisement

Alan Smithers, the director of the centre for education and employment research at Buckingham University, said: "These results show the iniquity of the top universities having to account for themselves in terms of the backgrounds of their students.

"The reason for the concentration of good results in the core subjects of science and languages is that independent schools recognise that they open up future opportunities for pupils. Universities are being expected to compensate for the failure of some of our secondary schools to provide opportunities in these subjects. In the private sector, 80 per cent of physics teachers have a degree in physics. In the state sector, just 30 per cent of those teaching physics are qualified to that level in the subject."

The data, published in response to a parliamentary question, shows that 44 per cent of the A grades awarded in French and German last year went to pupils in private schools, as did 36 per cent in maths, 38 per cent in physics and 37 per cent in chemistry. On average, 40 per cent of A grades in sciences and modern languages across the country were gained by sixth formers from private schools.

Subjects perceived as harder to do well in remain a major focus in private schools. State schools, under the pressure of government league tables, are said increasingly to be encouraging pupils to go for better grades in "easier" subjects.

Sam Freedman, the head of research at the Independent Schools Council, said: "Independent schools don't allow children to take the easier options because they are not made available.

Fewer than half of schools in the sector offer media studies, for instance. We support traditional subject areas like the sciences and languages because they are a better grounding and because universities such as Oxford and Cambridge have made it clear that these are the kind of A-levels they want.

"Many universities would not have maths, science and French departments if it were not for the independent sector providing high quality candidates."

The achievement gap between the independent and state sectors is expected to increase further when the A* grade at A-level is introduced in 2008. Research carried out in 2003 by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, the exam board, found that independent school pupils were up to five times more likely to achieve marks at the upper end of the A grade at A-level than their state school counterparts.

Whilst looking at DS private school, I met the bloke who will be teaching him maths, passed my outline screen. (it's a hard habit to turn off).

Pretty good, since 90% of maths grads could not get past me.

The state knows that parents won't put up much of a fuss if grossly unqualified people teach their kids.
Most private schools don't have that luxury.

It's true about media studies, a wholly worthless subject. We rejected one private school because it had daffy crap like this.

I'm not sure why there are ""'s around "easier".
Physics and maths are harder, most people simply can't do them at all.

I recently discovered that to be a Maths teacher in a state secondary school all you need to be is a qualified teacher in any subject, primary included. It amazed me, I also found out that supply teachers are asked to teach any number of subjects regardless of experience or qualifications beyond a teaching qualification which could have been acquired many moons ago and not used for many years. Some schools are so desperate for teachers that they have to take what they can get and cannot demand their teachers are necessarily any good at the subject they are being taught. Is it any wonder that the state system is failing our pupils. Private schools generally demand a level of qualification and experience commensurate with the subjects taught and rarely use supply teachers unless they have previously taught in the school.

Surely this is a good reason why universities should positively discriminate towards prospective students from state schools.

Well i was thinking of being a geography teacher, but you do have to have a geography (at least 2/3) degree.

but supply teachers never know what theyre doing, and its a waste of a lesson.

Rather than universities positively discriminating for state schools could we not just try to ensure that the education system works before they reach 18. What is the point of investing time and money into an education system that only works 14 years after they started school.

imo, no discrimination is positive regrdless of good intentions

Of course we should be trying to improve the state education system for those children who are still in it or not yet started. It's unfortunately rather too late for those people (like my eldest dd) who have already finished school and wanting to get into a 'good' course at a 'good' university.

It's far too late at university level. If the comp child has been badly taught physics and got C in it how on earth can they cope at university level with private school pupils who all got A in physics. You'd dumb down the degree. May be there's an argument for putting those clever state schools ones into a year's getting up to the standard of prviate schools pupils preliminary remedial pre university year to cram them and then once they've done that they're let in if they can redo the A2 and get an A at the end of the year.

Right at you Xenia - are we asking universities to teach pupils the skills they should be learning at school?
Does this mean that we are going to have to make university courses longer so all that is need to be taught can be covered?
Of course this would keep children 'occupied' until they are in a position to pay for their education at 18.
Sorry a bit cynical here - bogwobbit i agree that your dd should not be punished for a useless education system. But it is a point worth noting that state provided free education is poor but university and private education paid for elsewhere is much better.

I think the universities are finding it very hard to fill their quotas of state school pupils. If hardly any take physics or French never mind get As in the sttae system and the Government is sayign if you the university want your full lot of money 50% of your students must go to state schools and yet the students are not even there to choose from it's quite hard. We could just leave it as it was which was a system that was reasonably workable - that individual entrance tutors seeing a candidate with ABB from a comp where everyone gets DDD of they're lucky might treat that person as an AAA from a good state grammar or private - I think that tended to work.

I disagree that state education is failing our children. State schools still produce plenty of top results and there are more graduates than graduate jobs these days so I don't think education is in a downward spiral - it's just used as a political football. There are several reasons why private education gets superior results. First of all, you get class sizes of about 10 as opposed to 30 so the students get three times as much contact time allowing them to be coached for exams. Secondly, there are far fewer behavioural problems in private schools allowing the teachers to get on with doing their job. Nothing debilitates the learning process more than disruptive pupils. And finally, parents who spend thousands of pounds on their child's education often put pressure on the child to get results i.e. make sure the child does their homework; pay for extra tuition if the child is struggling; make sure the child has a study area at home. 'Unqualified' teachers are a sleight of hand, because you don't need a degree in physics to teach GCSE (just a general maths/science background is enough), and most comps don't provide A-Level courses. In private schools A-Level courses are offered so accordingly subject specialists are recruited. In other words a private school would need a physics grad to teach A-Level physics, and a Chemistry grad to teach A-Level Chemistry and the logical assumption is that they would teach the GCSE versions. In a comp that has a financial restrictions you are just recruiting for GCSE so they might recruit a chemist who will also teach Physics and could do just the job just as well. One of the worst teachers I have come across had a Ph.D - he knew his subject inside out but just wasn't very good at explaining it in a way children could understand.

You're right. it used to be that universities would select students on potential as well as results. If a student in a privaste school is achieving straight B's they as likely as not would have less potential than a similar graded pupil in the state sector. Also they used to trust the schools to recommend students and in most cases the schools recommendations would be sufficient - these days teachers aren't given credibility for much and there's teh added pressure of schools needing quotas and results. Was the old system where teachers were trusted to teach really that bad?

Maybe you're right Xenia. Perhaps a year of 'remedial measures' or whatever is the answer but it's not going to happen is it. In the meantime, if you''re too poor to send your child to private school or don't want to for moral or political reasons, you might as well just tell your child to accept that they're going to have to lower their standards unless they're very lucky.

I don't think state education is on a downward spiral. I think it has always been pretty mixed and in some cases very poor.
I think discipline is a big part of the problem and also a lack of inclination to get rid of poor or ineffective teachers, maybe because in many cases it is difficult to recruit retain good teachers so a poor one is better than nothing.

Sorry x posted - Rosemary you're right too in some ways, but the fact that the state sector can't provide the same as the private sector surely suggests that it is failing. I'm not suggesting that every state school pupil has the potential to secure a university place, and a larger percentage of private school pupils will be in that position, I agree but if you look at the statistics there is still a great disparity. there are many parents in the state sector who can't afford private education but who still care about their children's education. they can't afford to put the money to it and therefore are excluded from the opportunities afforded by private schooling. the disparity is too great to justify other than saying you get more if you can pay more.

Why is discipline a worse problem than it used to be? What is it that is causing the increase in anti social behaviour in children these day? ( I'm not as old as I sound , I'm beginning to sound like my Granny!!) But it is a point - there are some horrendous behavioural issues in schools these days and it is a problem in terms of the learning of other pupils. But what actually has caused it and how can it be addressed? I genuinely don't know the answer but have a few entirely unfounded personal theories, i was wondering if anyone really knows?

There have always been badly behaved kids. The difference is that now there are more of them. Where we had just one or two really bad ones when I was at school, now you've got several in each class. They know no-one can touch them, and seeing them get away with it makes those who follow-the-leader try it on as well.

Teachers hands are tied and the kids know it.

I don't know what the answer is BTW. There is a general disrespect for authority in society at large, which adds to the problem.

Private schooling gives an advantage, which obviously puts state schools at a disadvantage, but being at a disadvantage doesn't necessarily mean they are 'failing'. State education has numerous success stories. A student who get an 'A' at a private school doesn't necessarily have a better grasp of the subject than a 'B' from a state school, because a lot of coaching goes on which can make up to a grade's difference. Even where a gap does exist this is quickly vanishes over a 3 year degree in equal students. Cambridge has recognised its elitist attitude causes a problem for its recruitment - it mostly draws from straight 'A' private students and rejects state school students that may have a mixture of A's and B's, and yet these state school students do on to places like York and Durham and Manchester and get 1st class degrees while Cambridge only awards about 60% firsts. That's pretty good, but when you have your pick from every university student in the country then that is a disppointing figure because you've let first class students slip through the net. The greatest proportion of students who account for non 1st class degrees at Cambridge are privately educated girls, and the theory is that this bracket is the most coached and flounder because that support structure is not in place at university. It's less apparent in boys where coaching has less effect. A student who gets an'A' at an average state college is probably pretty good because a large part of that is achieved off their own bat. Given the choice though I would plumb for private education because it does provide the best learning environment, there's no argument about that, but state schooling still provides a perfectly adquate education for the most part bar the odd dud school.

Bad behaviour has increased, and I think it's because there is no discipline in a lot of these homes. they can do what they want at home so they think the can get away with it at school. I think they should recruit prison wardens as headteachers in the rough schools because they would be better equipped at controlling bad behaviour. If schools were run more like prisons with solitary confinement and buggery in the showers after PE then I am sure we would see a dramatic improvement.

My mother who taught state school classes of very poor children in the late 1940s said the children tended to sit still and do what they were told and at home if the child was in trouble at school the parents were cross with the child, not angry with the school (with some exceptions of course). My ex husband who did some work in the state system said it was like being a policeman (in the school he was in). He is actually good with disruptive children but it wasn't as easy to teach.

Peter Lampl has a good article about it in the Sunday Times today www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1976777.ece

He has some good ideas including bussing clever children from poor areas to the best state schools and opening private schools to state pupils with state funding on a sliding scale depending on parents' income

But rosemary is 'adequate' enough for those who have the potential to achieve more?

how about plain old decent standard of teaching, investment in schools, more teachers, more schools, smaller class sizes, and parents who have to sign forms like " if you dont like your child being diciplined the way we do things then fuck off"

my child oes to a good school - A GOOD non private school

the pta and rich parents work irelessly and it has some oft he best equipment in the country i would argue. we live in an affluent area and kids with money attend.

why then - is it quite often we get stories home about - wanky stand in teachers.

not enough staff so they put a shakespeare video on. or another video on - video video - cd cd

since when was it ok for girls to wank lads under the table. mumsnet thinks its fine beucase i've asked the question

so let me ask - if you as parents think its ok for your daughters to be wanking off your sons in class - how the fuck is the educations ystem going to get better?

especially with this har de fucking har the things i did when i was 14 attitude.

what happened to pride.

AH, and this one too www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1976786.ece

It mentions a new study commissioned by the Sutton Trust which shows:

"Last week yet another report, commissioned by the educational charity, the Sutton Trust, highlighted the widening chasm between the private and state sector. English schools perform a little above average compared with other countries, while English private schools are at the top of the international league table. According to the research, there is no other advanced country where the gap in performance is so large as in the UK and precious few signs of that gap being closed.

Britain, it seems, is turning out two classes of kids, an underclass who lack basic qualifications, five AC grades at GCSE (two out of five children nationally fail to reach this hurdle) and a small elite knocking out 10 or so A grades in some of the best private schools in the world. "

Having a foot in both camps, I would say that not all independent schools coach their pupils - the more academic schools don't need to because they have the lucky combination of very able pupils and well qualified staff. State schools do have problems with discipline and have to spend far too much time sorting out bad behaviour which detracts from teaching. They also have difficulties attracting teachers for science, maths (and other subjects) because there is a shortage of such teachers and those available can pick and choose. My younger son who has attended a local comprehensive can point to some very good science and maths teachers as well as some who weren't too good and had four maths teachers in Y10 because the school couldn't fill a permanent post.

The only way you could have a state education that could rival a private education is if you bring back grammar schools, which I would back incidentally, but I doubt it will ever happen.