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.
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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.

Quattro - at secondary level all private schools select (11+ and CE spring to mind for starters) and many select younger and if they don't select at 5 they operate a weeding out policy....

"If you really want to know what could be done to improve state schools I could tell you. In fact, I have already said many times on this thread that the first thing we need to do is get rid of league tables, faith schools and so on. But if you want smaller suggestions I have lots."

We could do with a bit less misconstruing of other people's posts.

Thank you

Sorry Isabel, did I misconstrue? I didn't see many concrete suggestions for really what we should be doing.

I send my children to selective schools. Many independent schools are not selective even at secondary level. Many choose to teach the full ability range. I do accept that the results will undoubtedly be skewed by the fact that many schools do select. The fact remains though, that many do not.

But noodle 11+ and CE can be set at any level the schools choose; nominal selection only for a lot of schools. And in many cases the results are just used for setting purposes once the children are at the school.

Ds1 did CE last year; even in London there is a huge variation in the scores the schools are looking for, from 70%+ in all subjects at the top end, to 50% ish. Also in some subjects like Maths, Latin, French, different levels of paper are set (a bit like GCSE) in order to cater for all abilities.

Also do you think throwing money at the issue without a clear agenda is the solution?

The majority of private schools DO select. All initiatlly be ability to pay and the majority by examination. The nearest ones to me which all have co-ed kindgergartens 3-7, then single sex preps,7-11, then single sex senior schools 11-16 then co-ed 6th forms (Bury Grammar, Bolton School, Manchester grammar, Hulme Grammar) all have interview/tests at 3, then tests at 7 and again at 11 with interviews. There are a couple of small ones which don't test but do interview. And a smaller one still which is a committed faith school and selects on that basis. Oh, there are also quite a few prep schools which select by tests and interviews from aged 3. When I worked in Essex same thing with Forest and Bancrofts being the main ones and then a couple of smaller ones who select by interview or faith. Many smaller private schools may not test (although almost certainly interview) but the bigger ones almost all do so are statistically more relevant. I don't know what the deal is with boarding schools like Eton but only a tiny minority of people would be able to afford their prices.

If you read my earlier post youwill see that all kids HAVE TO study SHakespeaere. He's part of the National Curriculum and you can't do SATS or GCSE without it.

Leaving aside the issue of selection (which REALLY many don't - see tuppy's post - there are boarding schools crammed full of "nice but dim" children) let's hear what YOU think state schools could do to improve themselves.

Reducing class sizes is the biggie. My other 2 approaches would be to focus all resources and energy on kids when they're young preferably pre-school and in the earlier school years. And the other approahc is parents. Parents need educating as soon as their kids are born about how best to help their kids and preferably before. All schools should invite parents in regularly certainly before each school year and preferably by term or topic and explain what they will be teaching and why and how they can support their kids. technology needs to be used better email, texting, intranet. schools should offer parenting classes and classes for parents and children to learn together. Get rid of testing, get rid of most courseowrk.

That same reserach I've been talking about also found that at 3 boys were 3 months behind girls in terms of school readiness. More needs to be done for boys. Agree with delaying school start age.

Fathers. Masculinity and fatherhood hasn't adapted to the changes in society (in terms of employment and women's growing equality). Fathers in particular need to be encouraged to play a meaningul role in their kids education. They should be allowed to stay in hopsital when their child is born and encouraged from thta moment.

Apparently, parents aspirations for their daughters have outstripped those for their sons for the first time ever.

The problem I have with your solutions B&W, is that the responsibility for improving schooling always seems to lie elsewhere.

So instead of the schools, we are invited to look at pre-schools etc etc. And society and fatherhood. Is there really nothing that teachers and schools could be doing now?

with behaviour. Show me a troublesome child and I'll show you a troubled child with nine times out of ten troubled parents. We need someone to do a Jamie Oliver on parenting. A sort of supernanny to help parents learn to discipline and support their kids. Almost every time I've had a parent into school to discuss behavioural problems the parent has siad, 'I just don'tknow what to do with him'

Almost all problmes with behavour are white working class boys (same as majority of leaving school with no qualifications). there are real problmes with men, masculinity, boys fathers in this country.

I agree with DC that the media give unhelpful messages to boys. Whereas once being physically strong and aggressive were helpful qualities for boys in education they are not. Footballers and their behaviour and their money are not helpful.

You're misunderstanding me Quatro, I'm saying schools and teachers have a crucial role in educating parents and getting to kids young. We need to invite parents in and go out to them. I'd love to do stuff like that but we receive no training in dealing with parents and given no resources to do it. Secondary teachers should be going into primary schools and primary teachers into nurseries and vice versa.

Why do you think league tables are bad? I like objective measures and evidence-based assessments.

you have opened a can of worms there mentioning fathers, not sure about the first few days but the next eighteen plus years boys especially need the involvement of fathers

Again, schools could have a crucial role in helping fathers. Inviting specifically dads in and so on.

but many schools especially primaries are suspicious of men

While schools do need to be accountable and do need to analyse their perfomrance in relation to bench marks and value added, league tables are used by middle class to try and get into the best perofrming schools. this leads to good schools becoming oversubscribed and the harder schools sinking and in some cases having ot close because of falling roles. They are a tool for the middle classes and no hlep for the owrking classes (who often don't bother with them, don't udnerstnad them or can't do anything about what they learn from them anyway). They also make school and teachers focus on exams and results (particularyl C/D borderline) which is not the smae as teaching.

All the more reason to get the men in hydro. Boys often do see primaries and schooling and education as feminine and girly. Parents should be encouraged into school reguarly. Esp when kids are badly behaved parents should come and watch what they're like and be taugth strategies fo rdlealing with them together parents, teachers and behaviour experts.

Assuming that you wish to use league tables to decide on the best education for your child, then league tables do not provide enough evidence. How does your child compare to the intake? If there are only, say, 35% of children who achieve 9 A*-C grades, is your child likely to be one of the 35% or the 65%. I taught at a school with a highly polarised intake. We were pretty much bang on the national average for GCSE results. But that average was comprised of some exceptionally good results, and some exceptionally poor results. There were actually not that many 'average' pupils. Our A level results appeared much, much better, because the bottom rump had left. Our 47% would have told you very little about how your child would have done.

without the tables and standards how can some schools be prevented from going the way they did in the seventies and early eighties

I've got nothing against standards and monitoring these externally and internally but it was a huge mistake to publish these. There have always been better and worse schools but now we have extremes with no way out.

unfortunately a man knocking on a school door is too often seen as a potential paedophile when he is more likely to be a dad seeking help about his children

Same thing with 'choice' of school. Only some parents have any real choice. This is why Brighton has gone to lottery. I do understand how some parents would be driven wild by this especially cos of the sibling issue etc but a father was on Radio 4 this morning saying he thought it was brilliant and fari.