Without meaning to sound smug.....

[alfiesbabe]

(well ok just a little bit!) I'm interested to discover that our local 6th form college has 9 students with Oxbridge offers, our local state school has 4 and the private school where dh teaches has....2. What's going on here?? Is the tide turning at last? State school quotas?? I'm intrigued. I've sounded out DH and a significant number of the private school students were turned down. He describes them as very much conventional oxbridge candidates - ie predicted straight As/appropriate amount of sport and music involvement etc. Having said that, I taught a couple of the 6th form college pupils when they were at 11-16 level, and they are extremely bright and predicted straight As. DH also said it isnt just an oxbridge thing - some of his pupils are getting a similar response from Durham, Bristol etc.
I don't want this to become a private/state debate - I'm just intrigued by this.

Half the people in my university class were from private schools and it was very clear that they had higher financial expectations than the rest of us. Now whether that was from their school, family, or peer group, I really don't know. Some have, alas, been disappointed!

Even among those of us from state schools there was a big range, socially and culturally - very little noticable difference between some of the more middle class state schoolers and the public schoolers. So I do think family and peers are the biggest influence.

Oh I have some nice friends. Some of them are a bit posh but I'm not above making allowances for that sort of thing.

Must say I am abit shocked how frequently people are visibly surprised if it comes out that DH and I are state educated. What do they expect state school educated people are like? Hoodie wearers? Incomprehensible accents? Gold hoop earrings?

The arguments 'life is not fair' and 'it's natural for some people to do better than others' are stupid. Thankfully the vast majority of people don't buy into either of those fatuous ideas anymore or women and the working classes would still not be voting let alone being educated even at primary level and certainly not in HE. There is nothing 'natural' about some people getting into Oxbridge and some people not and it's all very well to accept the status quo dismissing any arguments for change as 'life is unfair' if you're one of the privileged.

And it's equally crass to suggest that asking for more equality in education is somehow akin to establishing a communist state like the ones that have failed. There are many other countries which have a more equal education system and strangely enough more social ability without being communist. In fact, pretty much every country in Europe, the US and Scandinavia does. Britain is the worst in these respects.

The problem with systems where you have an elite (and this applies also but on a sliding scale to private schools, grammar schools and faith schools) is that everything else is going to be second best. The elite institutions will attract more funding, more applicants, more teaching exerptise, a better reputation and then more funding, more applicants ... and yet they serve a tiny and privilege minority of society as a whole while those serving the majority who probably need more funding, more expertise etc etc don't get it.

Now private schools are one thing but it's something else when we all pay our taxes for institutions (grammar schools, faith schools and top universities) that only a few (usually the wealthy, the well-educated and the pushy) can access.

I can see why you might want universities to specialise in particular fields (medicine, languages, whatever) but I can't see why we need to have universities organised into a hierarchy.

Likewise with schools. Why can't children just go to their local school which should be just as good as the local school 5 miles away and 100 miles away. People can't be prevented from opting out and paying but it shouldn't be taxpayers who fund the education of the privileged few.

suey2, your school/college must have been quite something if you didn't even know Oxbridge existed.

I think times have changed. Most schools and colleges are desperate to push A profile students to apply to Oxbridge these days and make a big song and dance when one gets in and rightly so. They'll stick it on their prospectus, invite the local press in etc etc.

I've already told you that my own college identifies potential Oxbridge candidates on entry and then has a pretty rigorous programme to support them in their application and encourage independence and extension of their studies. We also have a programme for A and B students in each subject area just to rise aspirations to apply for university at all and then to apply for top universities. I'm pretty sure this is the case in every other 6th form colleges and will happen probably more informally in schools.

but there's absolutely no point in encouraging students who do not have a mainly A grade profile to apply (and put them through a rather gruelling application process only to be disappointed) and it's not our job to tell students who don't like the courses at Oxbridge (and many don't; they're very traditional and not at all flexible) or who have another very good reason for applying to another university that they've got it wrong.

"Why can't children just go to their local school which should be just as good as the local school 5 miles away and 100 miles away. "

fivecandles

This argument has been false for along time, haven't you heard of the middle class ghettos that arise around good schools so that most people cannot afford the house prices?

Well, Cammelia, this situation has become significantly worse since league tables. In my ideal world there wouldn't be middle class areas (which have high performing schools) and deprived areas (which don't).

Neither would there be private schools and faith schools which (esp post league tables) become increasingly over-subscribed and therefore increasingly high-performing.

It's not a 'false argument'. Going to your local school is exactly what happens in most countries except Britain. Yes, I recognize that this isn't going to happen any time soon in Britain (quite probably never at all) but it doesn't mean it isn't a good argument.

Its not a good argument. The state can't tell people where to buy a house. One's "local" school is the school nearest to where you (can afford to) buy a house.

I don't entirely follow the fivec argument. I believe all clever children should be helped to apply to the best universities. There have to be best ones just as there are the best companies to work for, best men and women to marry etc etc. So I would take them from the state system and put them into private schools or restore grammar schools.

You can't neutralise the fact some children are more clever than others. I agree some clever poor children aren't encouraged enough and that's why the 11+ was good. Most schools did it without preparation and teachers looked out for those children at primary level and helped them before it was too late.

There is an element of it being natural that some get into Oxbridge and some don't. Some are just brighter than others at birth because we aren't born the same in terms of brains.

Why is it wrong to have elites and people who are second best? It's all arount us. I'm mover clever than some and less than others, same on looks, same on a bunch of other things. People will always compare and even if you look at people in rain forests in Borneo they have those structures and elites.

Also some people are just bone idle and others work every hour there is and obviously the latter tend to do better than the former. Some have propensity for depression and schizophrenia. We aren't all the same.

Children will emerge from univesrity and seek work. If they went to Middlesex Univesrity and its equivalents they will have less chance at many jobs than if they went to one of the best 10 universities. I am jolly glad that is so. If it were not there would be a big problem.

Private schools give you confidence and high expectations and a robustness at dealing with criticism which I am not sure all state schools do. I have no problems with the state system learning from the private. We have in the UK some of the best schools on the planet emulated the world over, in our private system. Something I am sure we are all very proud of (expect for left wingers I suppose) Sadly the same can't be said for our state system as we slip more and more behind other countries even in basic literacy. You even get parents sending children back home to Kenya and Jamaica to get a proper education.

And, in response to an earlier post of yours Xenia.

I think you might have been explaining why you are so obsessed with the highest performing schools, A grades and Oxbridge etc and you said you just wanted your children to have opportunities. Well there aren't many parents who don't wish this for their kids are there.

And you said you thought parents should have access to accurate information but why? Having access to information like which schools achieve the highest number of A grades is not going to affect the vast majority of parents choice of school because

most parents do not choose schools on this basis alone

and while privileged families might be in a position to apply to these schools poor families won't be able to do anything with this information.

So, again why are you so interested in conveying this sort of information? Why the obsession?

If you're really interested in helping the lot of the bright but poor child put your money where your mouth is and do some volunteering at your nearest (state) school where perhaps you might learn a thing or two.

But Cammelia while the highest performing schools (in terms of exam grades notice that I don't use the term 'best schools') are likely to be in the most leafy middle-class areas and vice versa the obsession with house buying etc etc is relatively recent. IT has been created by league tables.

So no the Govt can't tell you where to buy a house but by publishing league tables they've effectively told the middle classes where not to buy a house and left the poor with bugger all choice about schools.

I am going to be totally honest here about what i would like for my children. My kids attend an excellent state primary school with a mixture of kids but with a greater than average number of middle class kids who work hard and behave, it is the only primary school in town. I would like them to go to a secondary school that was the equivalent but this is not possible without moving house and leaving a place we are very attached to. The reason that this is the case is that there is a large private school at the bottom of the road, it pulls in a large proportion of the middle class bright kids from the whole county. This lowers the exam results of the remaining state schools and therefore frightens off even more parents from sending their kids to them. Despite being arty state school graduates our family could easily afford to send our kids to the private school (a mixture of hard work and luck) but we can't because our kids are middle ranking academically and the school would rather bring in kids from miles away than let in average local kids. The school is helping a few kids but disadvantaging many by creaming off the best pupils and teachers, I'm sorry but it is not fair and charitable status should be removed. My father actually attended the school on a full bursary which the school used to offer to bright kids from poorer homes, it doesn't anymore despite having a healthy bank balance. I suppose if my kids were high-fliers I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be tempted to send them to avoid moving and leaving their friends but at least i would have misgivings and not be proud of perpetuating social divisions, quick abolish them so that I can get rid of my horrible middle class guilt.

But why not give them that choice? If they have a bright child they might want to known Manchester grammar or WEstminster under school is actually better than their local state primary which had what everyone is saying is a brilliant ofsted report but is actually well below those other types of school.

We used to have a system where poor parents were not given any statistics and expected to attend their local school and be grateful. The league tables came out and they have really helped a lot of parents, but not parents like I am, we always knew what were good schools.

I'm certainly not obsessed with the topic but it's interesting where we start and where we end up in life and how and why our children turn out how they do. Education is part of the answer.

It does UK plc no good if children aren't well educated and if employees are recruited from one narrow pool so the more children given the better opportunities the better the country can compete in world markets. It's in everyone's interests.

In countries where the vast majority of kids go to their nearest school you don't get any of this angst and while of course you get nice areas and not nice areas and nice schools and not nice schools there is much less division and inequality. I work in a community where schools are virtually segregated by ethnicity and class and this is replicated across the country and getting worse.

I can't imagine where these countries are that you are talking about fivecandles. I think what happens in the UK happens everywhere.

No, Xenia, league tables have helped the parents who didn't need the help (and even this is arguable). Middle-class kids with supportive parents will do well anywhere. There is now huge angst amongst middle class parents (just glance down the list of threads here) because now they feel it's their duty to move to houses they can't afford, to tutor and cram (to prepare for grammar school), to adopt a faith.

I went to a fairly average comp in what was then a relatviely middle class area. Many of my middle class friends went there too. We were in the top set. We did well and got mainly A grades and were ok. Now, that school is in the bottom 100 of the league tables after being in special measures and being reopened. Middle class parents don't send their kids any more. The kids who are left have not chosen that school they went there cos they had no choice. And house prices have plummeted. LEague tables have devastated this community. Now for the school which was best performing in the LEA (surprise surprise a faith school) the reverse happened. Hypocritical parents are queueing up to get their kids baptised and buying up the hosues which have rocketed. How is any of this a good thing?

Well, the middle class pushy parents now by and large can avoid the hoi polloi. Their kids get the same good grades they always did. And the poor kids?

If my parents had had access to league tables (and all the angst that came and comes with it) I don't think I would have gone to the school I did. My friends probably wouldn't have either.

Wrong Cammelia. In most countries kids go to their local school. France and Switzerland for example don't have either faith schools or much of a private system. It's well known that faith schools in the UK take in kids from well outside what would be a normal cathcment area. Sometimes they can have up to 50 feeder schools but take no kids from the road that the school is on.

In general in Scotland almost all children go to their local school and we have no grammars, haven't had them for years, private school are less common too(except in Edinburgh, the school with a good social mix and good results is quite common (I went to one) unfortunately for me the town where i live is unusually divided because of a local private school but this is an unusual situation here. People are starting to request placements out of catchment school though so maybe we will end up like England.

There's much more social mixing and social mobility in every other country in Europe and the US. The UK should be ashamed.

I've told people before but no one's responded that in the LEA where I work kids are bussed in from one shchool to a different sort of school on one day each year because otherwise they wouldn't ever get to mix with a child of another class or ethnicty. Don't you find this shociking?

And let's not underestimate the stress concerned middle class parents have to endure nowadays. Do they stay put and go down the road? Do they move and if so when? Do they opt for private? Can they afford it? Can they reconcile this with their principles? Can they start going to church? And a lot of this will be communicated to the children. No wonder British children are also at the bottom of the UNicef league table for happiness.

"There's much more social mixing and social mobility in every other country in Europe and the US2

I don't believe this.

I have heard this is true Cammelia and have some experience of France and Germany. People just go to the local school, period without all the angsting we have here.

Just another experience from my dh, perhaps one of the most intuitively quick and clever people I know (perhaps an element of bias but please forgive me). He was educated in the state sector. Very high achieving, prize winning, head boy etc etc and was encouraged by his school to apply to oxford (the only one in his year).

He tells me there was no preparation or advice given for his interview and thus he was shocked (and apparently still vividly experiences parts of his interview in the early hours of the morning) when he was ripped to pieces and humiliated by a number of professors in a manner which in retrospect was part of the interview and if he had been told to not see this as a personal attack.

i myself have been educated both at state and private school and have seen the difference in the amount of resources available for oxbridge candidates in each sector.

I apologise if the thread has moved on somewhat since previous points have been made, but i am a slow typer. So I would also like to make the point that there is an insidious prejudice against those who have gone to private school, also pervading this thread. A feeling that those attending these schools are somehow worthy of judgement and their achievements can be somewhat denigrated. This point is now very much behind the time but I'm glad i made it