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.

X , i'm not saying we have to encourage everone, just if some people choose to do that then they should be given the support they need, along with useful skills such as first aid and parenting and value them for thier choice of contribution to society. You're in danger of sounding like 'just being a mum' isn't valuable - but I know you didn't mean it , did you?

"You're in danger of sounding like 'just being a mum' isn't valuable - but I know you didn't mean it , did you?"
Anyone in for a chorus of "Oh yes she did?"

I honestly assumed not but then re read the thread and had reservations but having been hounded off another thread this evening I didn't want this one to get personal too. I'd rather keep going with the discussion at hand of whether everyone should have to ba an academic professional and shouldn't we not value everyone's contribtution to society regardless of academic achievemet. I think it would be interesting if everyone's pay was commensurate with their contribution to society. Road sweepers IMO would be paid much more than lawyers.

"What you do need is a lot of people who are good at the jobs which need doing , including cleaning toilets and the streets etc"

which jobs immigrants are currently filling and why we think Britain would fall apart without their input (which it probably would!). Britons are becoming 'too educated' for this sort of work.

agree with your posts cluttered

My observation is that the middle-classes will say that not everyone can be academic but they don't count themselves in that number.

I would also like to add that being working class does not automatically mean troublesome children, graffiti, being law breakers and lacking in intelligence. Shock, horror, some of us even have supportive parents who value education. Many of us also have manners, ambition and intelligence.

Equally, there are a lot of neglected middle class kids out there but because they live in nice houses, go to good schools etc, they are not disparaged like working class off-spring. Also, graffiti is not confined just to the working class.

A system that allows people to choose would allow 'working' classes to follow an academic path if they wished and would enable 'middle' classes to do non academic things if they wished to. The point of equality of opportunity should be that everyone should be able to choose what they'd like to learn to do. There can't be any guarantee of success - that woulsd be 'euality of success' which just can't work or we'd have everyone being doctors and noone to build the hospitals. I'm sure there are just as many miserable middle class people out there who are not academic who would far rather be studying plumbing or typing than 'wome'ns studies' so they can get an inadequate degree which qualify's them for diddlysquat.

Gobbledigook, my job is dealing with smart people, and trust me a British A level physics gets you zero points on our scale. To give you some reference, the average UK physics grad only merits an automated reply. The absolute lower bound to get to talk to a human is a French DEA.
We make an exception for Warwick maths, but only because banks like it so much.

We live in a post Daily Mail labour market. Fact is that our kids have to compete with Indians,m, Chinese, Russians etc. The arts graduates in government may pass laws that stop smart foreigners coming to Britain, but it can't stop them existing. They are going to do smart shit, maybe in Bangalore, maybe in Basingstoke, but they aren't going away.
You want your kids to prosper in a world with 10 times the number of competitors that we had when we left school then morris dancing, French and media studies is not the way to go.

Unless they get commissioned to make a documentary on French Morris dancers.

if people think our degrees are worthless how comes our science and engineering graduates are in such demand worldwide
Much of the education in south east asia (according to my chinese and indian colleagues) is very much learning by rote and no thinking outside the box or inventiveness.

This thread started with concern about the lack of social mobility in this country and lack of access for working class kids to a good quality of education. How depressing, then, that people should start in on the 'why bother educating the great unwashed anyway when we middle-class people just can't get the help and need to keep the working classes in their place to clean out toilets and mend our roads'. I'm surprised in this day and age that people are prepared to confess to such 19th century, reactionary attitudes. What a shame there are no mines to stick kids down and chimnies to put them up. That would sort out the problem of graffiti wouldn't it!

Those of you who go on about 'some people' (meaning the poor) lacking the 'intelligence' to go to university or to do qualified jobs have no understanding that the ways in which we measure 'intelligence' are by academic performance (i.e. exams = SATS, GCSEs, A Levels, Degrees and so on). The working classes are not born genetically stupid which is what some of you are implying and obviously believe. They are just not given the same sorts of leg-ups which middle-class kids are given which mean they are ahead of their working-class peers even at aged 3 (by a year!) and continue to be given support and encouraged to learn in ways that working-class kids rarely are.

It's ok for the middle-classes to send their kids to baby signing, apply for private school places before their kids are even born, adopt a faith, buy a house in the catchment of a good school, coach them into grammar schools and pay for private tuition but let's keep those nasty littel poor kids in their places eh?

Do you really think people 'CHOOSE' to become toilet cleaners and road menders? In the vast majority of cases those are jobs taken up by people who have had 'choice' taken away from them. When Blair and co talk about choice they are talking about giving the middle-classes the choice to buy houses, push their kids into grammar school etc so they can escape the kids with no choices.

B&W are you in some parallel universe ?
First you make bizarre claims about all the teachers you know being massively more qualified than the average, and now you claiming we want poor kids to be restricted to crap jobs, even when we explicitly say how pissed off we are that school aren't doing enough to stop this happening.

Nobody is attacking poor / working class / whatever kids. We are against the troublemakers (rich or poor) who spoil it for everyone else. I would be happy for schools to select on attitiude, not intelligence.
Give everyone a decent education up to about age 13 so that they are functionally literate and numerate. Follow this with a good education for those that want it and give something different but equally useful to the others.

You're right DC. Why are we wasting our time arguing with her?

B&WCat has a HUGE social conscience. She'd just love to give disadvantaged children all the advantages that middle class children have.

You know what? So would most people. But it's just not going to happen. The state, schools, teachers, HVs etc try very hard and spend a lot of money on the issue. But we will never, ever get a level playing field society - some children are born with social advantages, and that's how it is.

I don't think people choose to become toilet cleaners but I'm convinced that every one has the power to shape their future not to be one if they don't want too.

Yes, private school students may have access to more learning oportunites/better coaching than students from some state schools but that doesn't mean the fate of the more deprived students is decided, it only means that you as a parent have to have to take a more hands on aproach in helping your children to perform better.

Something I find fascinating about this country is that everyone has access to good universities at the same cost, provided they can demonstrate they have the skills and inclination to cope with the hard work. A much better condition than in other countries where getting a place in a very good university will not depend in your skills alone but in your ability to cover the tuition fees (scholarships are few and highly demanding in such conditions).

places where acces

DC, amazingly there is some common ground between us in that we both appear to want to increase the opportunities for working class kids and give them a better chance of a good education. I think we disagree about how to achieve this (though again there is some common ground in that you've said you're against segregation and selection if I've understood you correctly) and who is to blame for the state of things as they are (you blame schools and teachers I blame the government and the whole of society).

What has infuriated me this morning is this kind of attitude from clutteredup

'It's a sad but true fact of life that not everyone will be intelligent enough to be a rocket scientist - which I personally think a good thing as you don't need a lot of those for society to run smoothly. What you do need is a lot of people who are good at the jobs which need doing , including cleaning toilets and the streets etc. '

As if 'intelligence' and academic success was somehow something you either have or haven't. The attitude that thinks it's ok to do whatever it takes to give your own kids a leg-up (which often means paying one way or another) and then just say that working-class kids who just don't have the natural 'intelligence' (for which read money and educated, supportive or pushy parents) should all become toilet cleaners. Arrgh!

I just wonder what your response would be cluttered if anyone ever said that about your kids i.e. 'Sorry, I know your kid is trying really hard and has supportive parents but s/he just lacks the intelligence to go to university. I hear road sweeping is a rewarding career. And there's loads of roads near me that need doing. How about it?'!!!

Funniyl enough, Clutteredandco, I don't see a huge shortage of toilet cleaners anyway. This thread started by bemoaning the lack of qualified physics teachers and linguists etc etc. As I understand it that's where you're coming from DC.

'Yes, private school students may have access to more learning oportunites/better coaching than students from some state schools but that doesn't mean the fate of the more deprived students is decided,'

I would really really like to believe that was true. In fact, as a teacher that's what I have to work towards. But the statistics suggest otherwise. What your parents do for a living, their level of education and income are the biggest indicators of their child's academic and career success. Fact.

'it only means that you as a parent have to have to take a more hands on aproach in helping your children to perform better. '

Of course you're right but how blissfully naive to think that all parents are able to do this or willing or that children even have parents who are bringing them up. As I said earleir less than 1% of kids in foster care make it to unvierstiy and the vast majority don't make it out of school with any qualifications at all. What's your solution to this?

'A much better condition than in other countries where getting a place in a very good university will not depend in your skills alone but in your ability to cover the tuition fees (scholarships are few and highly demanding in such conditions).'

I hate to disillusion you but one of the biggest reasons for not taking up university places and drop out is because of finacnial hardship. One of the reasons some of my students don't even both applying to the top universities is because they have to stay at home if they have any chance of compelting their course so they only apply to unis where they can reasonably and cheaply get to from their parents house.

B&W The trouble with this discussion is that it is too abstract. Forget being a teacher just for a moment. What would you do as a parent in this admittedly imperfect society?

The foster care thing is a scandal but the media don't really care since so many of them are coloured kids, and the rest of course are poor.

As I recall, it's the mothers education that is pretty much the best predictor of what level of education kids go up to. Hence the dire state of cultures where women don't get educated much.

B&W, I have not schools are 100% responsible for the poor outcomes for many kids. I merely said they have failed. I went to some lengths to use an example of hospitals. We don't blame a hospital for the condition of people coming to it, but we should hold them accountable for not dealing with them correctly.

Anna, you're right. And of course most parents want to do what they think is best for their own kids. What pisses me off is the idea that everyone is ABLE to do what's best for their kids which clearly they're not (because they lack the money, the education, the awareness, the psychological strength, the health, whatever). And the idea that both one (middle-class) kid's success and another (working -class) kid's failure is down to their 'natural intelligence'. And the idea that one parent choosing to avoid her local comp and pay for her child's education in whatever way she chooses has no impact on the rest of the society (with or without realizing that every other middle class parent is doing the same thing).

B&W - but none of us can change the world. All we can and should do is do the very best possible job, whatever our job is .

Teachers and schools ARE held accountable. That's what OFSTED, the media and league tables do.

I think you're right that part of our argument is semantics. When you say schools are failing kids you actually are referring to the whole education system (meanoing grammar schools, faith schools, house buying) and government policies (which allow these things and introduced leageu tables etc)?

If that's the case then we are partially agreed.

I also add other social problems and families (though not blaming them) so that as I've pointed out many times kids have been failed BEFORE they even get to schools and while teachers and schools do what they can (which is loads) they will rarely get a child into OXbreige whose parents are non educated or supportive because that child has massive disadvantages which a school cannot compensate for and which otehr middle-class kids don't have.

Yes, Anna, but my job is to educate and to change the world we first need to change attitudes.

Actually the foster care thing was reported IN the MEDIA. How else would we be aware of it? And what I'm saying is there is a direct correlation between parental support and education and children's success. so kids without any stable parenting at all achieve nothing. Kids with parents who have money, time, love, education get A*. The link is more important and more direct than anything a school does.