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.

Blackandwhitecat - and we don't even have a truly comprehensive Sixth Form College system in my town - one only takes the A Grade students (including many who were previously at private schools) and the other takes the rest!

B&w I agree we have never had and probably won't have a truly comprehensive system unless we bus which is why bussing in is one of the suggestions in one of the reports I mentioned.

I don't think all state schools are bad but I do think it's harder if you're clever and poor to push your way through and rise up as it were as it was in the 1950s and 1960s which is a shame. I am not the only person saying that. It's why Blair and others are trying to deal with access to higher education by those who were in effect failed by their school.

Yes, a lot of state school teachers are very good indeed and most teachers in private schools. In my experience over a lot of years in a lot of schools and with an ex husband who taught in both systems in private schools you tend to get in the better private schools, the ones with good A level results, better qualified teachers in the private system and fewer who aren't qualified in their subject and less turnover of staff.

If ew could have a mixture of thigns - a return some assisted places for clever poor chidlren that would help. The Sutton Trust pays not just from 13+ but also for a few years at a prep school because at 13 it's a bit late to getup to the right standard for some private schools.

Most state school do stream. I think we should also exclude more children who are disruptive and put them into their own smaller schools. Perhaps we should also abolish state religious schools too which are an international anomaly or even better give all parents a voucher to spend at any school of their choice which Catholic and C of E parents would choose to give to quasi state religious schools.

How can you put all disruptive children in their own school, quite a few behave like this for a short period only while their hormones are adjusting then settle down and you would have to have extremely motivated staff to teach in such places if they were on a large scale.

Actually they do exist in the state system for those with severe long term problems they are known as pupil referral units and are staffed by both teachers and ed psychologists.

DD's school has a special unit within the school where children are sent for shorter periods to work in individual bays in a small class with some of the very experienced senior teachers and this seems to work extremely well and it enables the rest of the class to progress without disruption

"Some never do and end up in a private school where students are selected, supported and kicked out if they don't toe the line (so most of the work is done for them before the teachers get to the classroom). "

I assume this remark isn't directed at ALL private school teachers?

I've seen some fantastically talented and passionate teachers in the private sector who really engage the kids.

And not all kids in private school are mild-mannered, well-behaved and not likely to cause disruption.

I so dislike generalisations.

Someone earlier mentioned NAGTY, DD's school gave out the forms to quite a few, but when you look at the courses they offer, the summer schools look fantastic but because they are for two or three weeks are quite expensive and schools cannot subsidise. Even some of the day events can be costly (basic charge about £40) but once you add on transport plus a parent having to take the child and hang around for the day perhaps with other children it adds up.

It is not surprising that this also becomes a middle class club

Let's be absolutely clear about state education in the 50s and 60s because there are lots of myths springing up about the good old days and the heavenly grammar schools. Grammar schools educated less than 30% of all students (probably signficiantly less I looked it up once and now can't remember). The students at grammar schools (as now) were almost entirely middle-class. Yes, I absolutely agree that some bright children from working class backgrounds did manage to get into grammar schools and benefited from the experience. But this was only ever a TINY MINORITY. Even if all of the 30% were from working-class backgrounds which clearly they were not it would still have been a minority. And the effects on those children who didn't pass the 11+ were devastating and could never compensate for the tiny percentage of kids who made good.

Any system which divides children (by ability which almost always means by class since there is no test which doesn't advantage the children of educated, aspirational parents) is going to be unfair and mean that the ones who don't get into the good schools suffer. Whenever parents come on here and moan about how their kids get a raw deal and would be so much better off in grammar schools it never seems to occur to them that their kids might not be the ones to get into grammar school (in spite of the practice papers and private tutors and homework checking) or one child might and her sibling may not. Grammar schools aren't going to be that good if your child isn't allowed in are they? And if it's not your child it's someone else's. A child who passes exams (a child who is even entered for them) is almost certainly a child who has had parental support and has aspirations anyway. If you want proof of this look at the stats regarding foster children (less than 1% make it to HE while the majority leave school at 16 with no or few qualifications).

It's the children who don't pass the exams and don't know they exist or care about them that we should be most concerend about.

Grammar schools were only a small reason (if a reason at all and I would argue not) for greater social mobility in the 50s and 60s. Then, there were no SATS, there were less faith schools (still rising), middle-class parents did not peruse the league tables at the same time as feeding their kids pureed butternut squash, there was no Internet, 'white flight' was unheard of, there was less television, there was less of a drugs problem, there were less cars which even more parents (even middle class ones) opted for their local school, there were more jobs where you could 'work your way up', there was less teenage pregnancy, family units were more stable.

Even the Tories now recognize that grammar schools use tax payers money to benefit only the middle classes. Middle-class parents prepare their kids for exams to grammar schools from and even before birth both consciously (paying coaches, getting sample papers, checking homework, ferrying them to the exam, making sure they have a good breakfast on the day of the exam) and unconsciouly by giving them the advantages which mean that even by aged 3 they are ahead (by a year)of their working-class peers.

I wonder if with the social mobility there was a touch of "hunger leads to revolution". Many of the parents of children in the 50's and 60's would have remembered a time when there was no food on the table and chidren ran around bare footed and ragged and vowed not to return to that feeling the only way out was a good education.

I agree with much of B&Cats position, but sadly she is wrong about the tories. David Cameron has sussed out that grammar schools are an outdated idea, but his party hasn't.
If you look at the demographic of the tory membership, it's old, stupid people (average age around 60).
I deplore the state funded discrimination of faith schools who also "accidentally" somehow manage to get a rather lower % of kids who have greater needs.

But B&W is putting the difference in outcomes far too much on parents. Schools have a big part to play in this, and the near collapse in science education isn't helping one little bit.

I don't personally have a problem with the fact that parents like me achieve higher outcomes, my problem is that the state does far too little to compensate for kids who have crap parents.
The state abjectly fails to deal with kids whose parents speak legacy languages. There are lower expectations of these kids, and lower resources than they need.
It is very noticeable to me that coloured kids of immigrants on average speak English far less well than those that are white.
Either you assume that they are less bright, or that the school environment does shit like "respect their culture", ie do pointless rubbish like Urdu. That doesn't happen to kids of Polish or Russian parents, their culture gets zero "respect", so the kids do better at school.

"If you look at the demographic of the tory membership, it's old, stupid people (average age around 60)."

why thank you DominiConnor ....

"The students at grammar schools (as now) were almost entirely middle-class"

hmm, well where I lived in Manchester middleclassdom was nowhere to be found and the grammar school was full of children from working class parents (I wasn't one of them) I'll wager there were hundreds of other similar areas in 50's 60's Britain

DD's faith school has a much larger number of kids with greater needs than any of the surrounding schools

There was a significant benefit to the poor clever child from grammar schools. Let's not just deal with children in the middle. Pluck the bright ones out and give them a better chance. I don't think that's unfair. Yes, I know there are some units for disruptive pupils but they aren't removed fast enough.

Why does my children's school have no graffiti and the walls of the local comprehensive are covered in graffiti? That's just one interesting difference but why is that so? Why can't the state schools stop the children writing on the walls. Why can't they make the children say sir to the teachers and stand up when they enter the room - hosts of things like that which don't cost a penny to introduce.

Xenia - do you think it's down to the schools or the parents that children do or don't do graffiti or stand up for teachers?

'the state does far too little to compensate for kids who have crap parents.'

I think that's true. But it's not the fault of schools or teachers. How are teachers supposed to compensate for a loving family? How can a child who is given an unhelathy diet and put in front of telly every day with no aspirations and illiterate parents ever compete with kids from middle class families? And look what happens when the Government does try to intervene in the lives of disadvantaged children i.e. by laying down guidelines about healthy eating. They get accused of being a nanny state and not trusting parents etc etc. I actually think this Government has done more than most to address this problem. The SureStart scheme, increasing maternity rights, free child-care for 3 and 4 year olds, fruit in schools etc etc have all been introduced in order to try and give kids from poor homes more of a chance.

'The state abjectly fails to deal with kids whose parents speak legacy languages.'

This is absolutely not true. Schools have EFL co-ordinators. Children at an early stage of language acquisition are given in class 1-1 support and extra help. At my college we have a properly trained and qualified teacher and students with English as a second language. There are workshops and exams especially for them and many progress through to English GCSE, then A Levels, then university.

'There are lower expectations of these kids'

Rubbish. You've obviously missed the research last week that said the students most likely to under-perform and leave school with few or no qualifications are WHITE, working-class boys. I work in a college with approx 30% non-white students and their progress often far outstrips their white peers. I'm sure I've read that girls with parents of Chinese origin are the most likely to overperform.

'It is very noticeable to me that coloured kids of immigrants on average speak English far less well than those that are white.
Either you assume that they are less bright, or that the school environment does shit like "respect their culture", ie do pointless rubbish like Urdu. That doesn't happen to kids of Polish or Russian parents, their culture gets zero "respect", so the kids do better at school.'

Much of this is untrue and racist. The word 'coloured' is now considered offensive. Urdu is not 'pointless rubbish' That's incredibly offensive. Actually you'll probably find that Asian students out-perofrm Polish or Russian ones. We send many students off each year with English as a second lagnauge of Asian origin with A grades to medical school.

Increasingly your arguments are based on your personal prejudice and stereotypical attitudes. Not facts or evidence.

No state, no school, no teachers have ever been able to compensate for family failings and put all children on a level educational playing field. The only way to do so would be to remove all children from their families at birth and bring them up in identical state-run institutions, with insignificant contact with parents.

Do we think that would be a better way?

"I also think there are a lot of parents who think their kids are better than they actually are and it is convenient to blame the system rather than accept reality. I also know from experience that schools can be remiss in pushing forward bright children to achieve their potential."

This is the problem. If the middle-classes thought that (free!!) State schools were doing the best for their children then they wouldn?t rush off to private education. There must be a darned good reason why so many people are prepared to spend tens of thousands of pounds that they don?t need to.
Teachers like to indulge in do-gooding to the ?underprivileged? to the extent that it is detrimental to the majority. They say that they would like the middle classes on board but actually do things to frighten them off. Teachers love to express concern for ?underprivilged? kids but then sneer at the efforts of parents who are supportive (pushy, middle-class, etc).
My DD?s school spend a lot of time trying to get borderline students up to a C Grade but they do not spend the equivalent effort tying to get B or A students up a Grade. In consequence, we are deserting our local school for sixth form and going somewhere else where they do stretch all their pupils. And, as Xenia says, it?s not just results that parents want; it?s behaviour and aspiration too.

wychbold - interesting.

Same is true in France, and we are moving our stepsons from their state schools in September 2008 to address this. Whenever my partner has spoken to teachers, they never seem to know his sons because they sail through school, whereas the teachers are preoccupied with low achievers. We were seriously worried that they weren't being stretched enough and have worked really hard since Christmas at ensuring they became more engaged with their school work - with amazing results - we got their reports yesterday, full of stunned admiration for the improvements throughout the year - elder stepson's report was covered with "excellents" and "remarkables".

If we'd left it up to school, none of this would have happened.

Boys felt no pressure from us, btw - we just got much more involved.

I think that is game, set and match to B&W.

Wychbold. The middle classes are NOT the majority and certainly not in local comps which are not grammar schools or faith schools. The D/C borderline agenda has been set by the GOVERNMENT when it introduced league tables. League tables force teachers to focus on this group, teach to the exam, work incredibly hard to improve coursework etc because if their school slips down the league tables then the middle-classes take flight and the school continues to sink while other schools become over-subscribed, start selecting and improve. Most teachers and schools have issues with this but no choice.

To try to keep the minor but really important (for improving results but also for raising aspirations amongst their peers and improving debate and obviously because every child's education is important) number of kids from middle-class backgrounds in the state system and in comprehensive schools they have introduced G & T programmes. The top 5% of each school should be identified and supported. If this isn't working in your school speak to the head. It works well in our LEA thought there'll always be problems with it (e.g. parents arguing that their little darling is brighter than suchabody). There is also streaming/setting/banding in most schools. In fact, I haven't heard of any schools that don't do this recently. And options of extra-curricular activiies including extra GCSEs or taking exams early etc. As I said I was involved in delivering an extra GCSE as a twilight session to students predicted As and Bs across the LEA. Take-up wasn't huge but thsoe students who did do this got brilliant results (mainly A* and these all were as good or better than their other GCSEs) which added to their overall GCSE point score and helped make them more attractive to FE and HE.

No school or teacher is perfect. I never said the state system was without problems. Challengin the most able and supporting the least is one of the hardest aspects of teaching. Especially when you've got maybe 1 or 2 at the top, 5 at the bottom and 25 in the middle.

It's much easier to stretch all your students when you don't have the same range of abilities, have smaller class sizes and supportive parents. Obviously.

As regards graffiti and other anti-social behaviour, there is no justification but there is usually explanation. I suggest Xenia, Dominconnor go on some awareness training about the problems faced by the deprived in our society because they have a painfully naive 'let them eat cake' attitude.

If you had encountered the kinds of kids that I and other teachers have from unstable family backgrounds who are belittled, malnourished, unsupported with parents who don't know how to love their kids or parent them or who are semi-literate, unemployed, abusive you perhaps wouldn't sound so incredibly pompous and ignorant.

?The middle classes are NOT the majority and certainly not in local comps which are not grammar schools or faith schools.?

Utter claptrap. Our county doesn?t have Grammars and our town doesn?t have senior faith schools. Sounds to me that like you don?t know what you are talking about.

?they have introduced G & T programmes. The top 5% of each school should be identified and supported. If this isn't working in your school speak to the head.?

Duh: why didn?t I think of that?

Of course I have spoken to him. He?s not interested.

?Challening the most able and supporting the least is one of the hardest aspects of teaching. Especially when you've got maybe 1 or 2 at the top, 5 at the bottom and 25 in the middle. It's much easier to stretch all your students when you don't have the same range of abilities, have smaller class sizes and supportive parents. Obviously.?

So you?re admitting that the local comp will fail my children and I should look elsewhere!?

local comps are shit unless you live in a middle class area where the mums work tirelessly with fuck all to do all day raising the funds for the school.

this serves two purposes, becuase once your in the blood of the school they don't ignore sebastian your child - beucase they intimatley know his mother and how hard she works for the PTA

B&Wcat really need to read something other the Guardian. I grew up deprived, didn't like it one bit, didn't make me or the majority of other kids criminals (or at least we didn't get caught
What she doesn't want to understand is that just because someone else has screwed up, in this case parents, doesn't give everyone else a get out of jail free card for wilful incompetence.

Yes of course it's harder to deal with kids of that sort of background, people who turn up at hospital gushing blood are harder to help, but a hospital that took B&W's line of "the patient was hurt by someone else, so we won't try all that hard to fix them" would be seen as really bad.

Schools can't undo all the damage, any more than a hospital can, but we do see the same pattern of resource allocation by the state, where areas with higher immigrant populations get underfunded. Fact is that it does take more resources to deal with the average kid in Tower Hamlets than Winchester, which is of course why the former education minister Ruth Kelly isn't keen on those kids being near hers.

Unfortunately I am not the Head of your school Wych or responsible for the whole of the state education system. I think you've got some idea what things would be like if I were. If your school and Head are 'not interested' in a G & T provision then sue them because they are not fulfilling Govt policy. As I've said the G & T provision works well in my LEA (although there's a huge discrepancy between what counts as G & T between the schools since as I've mentioned the faith schools have creamed off the middle-class kids).

'So you?re admitting that the local comp will fail my children and I should look elsewhere!?'

I really don't think there was a lack of clarity in what I said. In fact you quoted me, 'No school or teacher is perfect. I never said the state system was without problems. Challengin the most able and supporting the least is one of the hardest aspects of teaching. Especially when you've got maybe 1 or 2 at the top, 5 at the bottom and 25 in the middle.'

I'm saying in state schools teaching is harder. It is harder to cater for the range of abilities since there IS a range of abilities. Most private schools don't have this problem since they select their students and kick them out if they are proving too troublesome or unlikely to make the grade. The grades achieved by private schools are not a result of the teaching or the management. They are the result primarily of selection which means the schools don't have to trouble themselves with learning difficulties or differntiation or the effects of poverty (or very very rarely).

A well-motivated student with a supportive, well-educated family will do well in any school. I'm a testament to that as is Dinosaur. As are many 1000s of other students. As I've said before it's not the schools that fail students. It's society, govt policies which encourage elitism and place obstacles in the way of working class children and families themselves.

'Yes of course it's harder to deal with kids of that sort of background, people who turn up at hospital gushing blood are harder to help, but a hospital that took B&W's line of "the patient was hurt by someone else, so we won't try all that hard to fix them" would be seen as really bad.'

What a totally crass comparison. What do you think teachers in state schools do all day? I have spent my whole career trying to 'fix children', educate them and give them opportunities. My partner teaches children with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties. Never once have we given up on a child or not tried very hard because it was difficult. I have never been to a school which has not 'tried all that hard.' or seen a teacher who doesn't try and 'fix' the kids. Once again you shown you know nothing about state education. I don't know how you can say that when you are promoting a system of schooling (private education) which doesn't try to help disadvantaged kids at all!

'Schools can't undo all the damage, any more than a hospital can, but we do see the same pattern of resource allocation by the state, where areas with higher immigrant populations get underfunded.'

Did you not read my last point? There is funding to deal with refugees and those with English as a second language. The group of people who are performing the worst academically in this country is NOT immigrants at all. It is WHITE working class boys.

'which is of course why the former education minister Ruth Kelly isn't keen on those kids being near hers.'

Ruth Kelly's kids go to state schools in Bolton, her constituency, bar one who has special educational needs.

But as I think you may have gathered I'm not a big fan of Ruth or Tone or their policies on education.

'What she doesn't want to understand is that just because someone else has screwed up, in this case parents, doesn't give everyone else a get out of jail free card for wilful incompetence.'

Where have I ever suggested wilful incompetence should be ignored or condoned? Where, please, is this 'wilful incompetnece?'

A child should never be blamed for the faults or ignorance of its parents or excluded or prevented from succeeding because of the circumstances of its birth. When you or others advocate separation this is precisely what you are doing.