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.

I say that because I teach in one of the most deprived towns in the coutry and my schools intake is the most deprived section of that town.

Very few of the parents who use our school have done well at school, many have low levels of literacy and numeracy and do not have high expectations for their kids. When I ask many of our kids what they want to do they say go on the dole as this is all they know. Many of our kids have parents or relatives in prison or whe fund their lives through criminal activity. For many of our kids becoming a parent before you have finished your education is the expected norm. Parenting is a huge issue too many of our parents just do not exercise control over their children either because they are unable to or they are high, pissed or just not there. Lots of our kids also come from big familes so not only can they not control their kids they are having lots of them, we have a family of ten in our school and all of them are an absolute nightmare.

In many of the classes I teach bad behaviour is the norm and there are so many kids in the class with behavioural issues it is a nightmare trying to control them. I usually manage it because I am a good teacher but it is difficult and I know that my ability to contain them is often lost the minute they leave my room. Beacuse there are so few role models of good behaviour or kids who exepct to succeed that many of our good kids turn by the end of year seven.

If we mis up the intake of our "sink ghetto" school with the more middle class school up the road those norms would change .

Yes schools are part of society but it's incredibly hard to compensate for the failings of parents and society in a school. For example, as an English teacher in a state secondary school I might see a struggling student for 3-5 hours a week along with 29 others. I do not have the training, resources or time to teach this student to read (which should have happened 10 years previously) as well as help the students who are going to get a C or an A* at GCSE. Neiteh does the inclusive learning department. And what do you do with parents who either condone or aren't aware fo their child's absence or who tell their kids not to waste time on school work, or who encourage their kids to smoke cannabis instead of doing homework?

Increasingly with my experience as a parent and recent research I believe that what happens in the first 4 years of a child is crucial to their later success (I think there are tests you can do with a child aged 3 or 4 which can predict their GCSE point score with some accuracy). My kids are growing up with parents who provide an example to them, with books in the house, with television time and content limited, being read to daily and nightly, being taught shapes, letters and stuff about life, the world and everything all the time, with a good diet etc etc. My children at 4 can read, have an instinctive understanding of how language works, how sentences are structured, how books work and so on. A child who does not have these privileges starts school from a disandvantage, he will feel frustrated and like a failure from day one, he will misbehave to get attention or draw attention away from is academic failures. And it almost always is a he. Did you read recently that the majoirty of those leaving school without qualifications are white boys? And that girls aged 3 are 3 months ahead of boys on average?

A question to all teachers. Do you think that the Scottish system is better (or worse) than the English one?
Fwiw, I don't think the state system is all bad (far from it - there are things I think are good about the state schools I've encountered particularly at primary school level) - I just think that it 'could do better'.

Agree Twinset.

The group in society who are most likely to fail in education are white working class boys , the group who also make up the greatest proportion of students in the state system

If ignorance begets ignorance how do we break the cycle?

I don't know enough about the scottish system TBH, I do hear rumours that it is better but I don;t know why.

I suspect money has something to do with it, a lack of money drags our standards down.

Yes more investment into education would help, but better management of the system is needed too.

Cluttered. Sex education. We still have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. Changing attitudes to sex (as in this country it's ok to sexualise children from an early age but not to tell them how babies are made). Equality in the education system so the poor are not abandoned in sink schools while the rich or richer or more educated swan off to adopt a faith, move house, whatever. Get rid of league tables and faith schools. Support parents. Encourage men to be fathers. Allow fathers to stay in hospital following the birth of their children. Allow fathers paternity leave. Increase access to childcare. Educate parents in how to parent. Get rid of some of the damaging messages on television (women have to be size 0 but if they have a degree they are clearly insane as on EastEnders). Get parents to get rid of the televisions from their kids' rooms and the computer games and get some books instead. Give children free books. Decrease class sizes. Increase access to HE. And so on

On teachers' pay - here is the GDST payscale.

Is it more, less or equivalent to state school pay? I hope someone understands the codings!

You're right about the sex ed stuff, teenage pregnancy rates in the UK are shocking. There's been a break down in 'family values' - I lived in Italy for a while and there most young people lived with thier families until they married and many families lived with their elderly mothers too once the father had died. I'm sure the whole Catholic family thing and attitudes towrds sex before marriage helped - I'm not pushing religion per se , but it must help, we have become aa almost completely secular society in that respect - they cared for eachother within their family units and therefore had respect for other people because they had respect for members of the family. Also parents knew and cared where their children were - it terrifies me when parents say 'well how was I supposed to know where she was, she wouldn't tell me where she was going out to' about a 13 year old girl. There was incidently a lot of fodling etc in parks after dark so sex was just pushed outside but the attitudes were definitely different. Incidently their whole attitude to drinking was very different over there too, I'd go out with friends and have on drink the whole evening, if i drank there as much as i do here they'd have though me strange, and drunken behaviour was frowned upon by all. I think we could learn a lot - I know nothing of their education system but I'd hazard aguess it might achieve more than ours on this basis. BTW the bookstart scheme is addressing the free book issue and encouraging parents with young children to use libraries, but htere's still a long way to go if the adults aren't literate.

Not sure. State teachers' salaries will be published on the Union websites (NUT or NAS). I notice the word 'equivalent' is used so probably is that and not more. But this is just girls day schools and wouldn't be the same for small private schools. And progression would obviously be harder in private schools. Also it's possible to get bursaries and extra points for loads of reasons in the state sector which would be harder in the private system. You'd really need to weigh up average earnings over a whole career and on average it looks like you're better off in state system.

I think the pay tends to be a bit ahead and in some schools my ex husband worked in there would be free school accommodation and free school fees too so those are massive perks although probably most private schools don't offer them. Biggest perk is clever eager children in lovely school surrounding and few discipline problems.

We are behind internationally particularyl if you strip out the private school results. The survey I put on here or was it the other thread by the Sutton Trust found a big gap between state and private. But I am almost at the point when I think the changes have been so very many what schools need most is certainly stability continuing and no change for about 20 years to allow rest, peace, ability to get on without constant change.

B&w, no way it's why teachers move to the private sector so much. Pay is usually better.

Sorry that's one drink - I'm ceasing to be literate too - maybe time for bed!

Teachers don't teach for the money, if you wanted to earn big bucks you wouldn't choose to be a teacher there are much better paid jobs out there.

That's just not true Xenia. I would be worse off in my local private school (2 mins walk from my house). Another teacher has said the same thing on this thread. And you have to look at pensions and progression. The document SueW has given a link to says in black and white that NQTs start on the equivalent of a state teacher's salary. But it's much harder to progress because there are fewer private schools.

Teachers may not go into teaching for the money but in my school they stay there for the good wage and excellent pension sometimes long after they should have left.

Oh yes and I also agree Eastenders has a lot to answer for.

I wonder what the results would be in private sector if they didn't select, didn't weed out those not clever enough, had several disturbed/disruptive children,had those that didn't hear english spoken at home, had children whose parents didnt give a sh*t whether children turned up at school or not plus some occasionally attending travellers for good measure and the one or two pregnant fourteen year olds all of whom need the support only the state sector can give

Possibly not as good as most state schools.

Hydrophobia has a valid point, which applies not only to officially private schools, but also faith schools which are allowed to reject the wrong sort of pupils.
But hydrophobia is just showing some Guardianista prejudice. Private schools usually have better facilities, teacher/pupil ratios and of course as the OP said a teacher actually qualified to do her job.
But that is not some magic trick, denied to state schools.
There is no EU law that says British schools must use PE teachers in maths lessons, or that highly disruptive pupils must be allowed to screw up the education of others.
There are more than enough physics graduates to be found, if you are prepared to pay.

It is not the immutable law of God that you are forbidden to use Chemists to help work out the Chemistry national curriculum.

Nor is there a French army garrisoned in Whitehall with a gun to Gordon Browns' head demanding that he teach all kids a language of poor marginal utility that even a 12 yo in a "working class" school (interesting term that), can work out is pointless.

Imagine what could be done for British education with the 10-12 billion quid squandered on the Olympics ?
Why not as the LibDems used to say, put a penny on income tax ?

Because the great British public values sport and low taxes more than education.

If people really wanted good education, it could easily be done, but in the main they do not.

I don't know about the funding levels in Scotland in general but I can tell you that dd1's former school is consistently in the top three state schools in Scotland. It's also consistantly underfunded compared to other Scottish schools so there's more to it than just money.

Give anything to the state and it messes it up, that's all.

On teachers' pay it may depend on the geographical area. The private schools we've been connected with always try to pay above state rates and have more senior posts.