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.

Yes, it is sometimes there - people saying I went to a state school an dirt never did me any harm and all these people in the private schools aren't any good.

Also you get an impression from this thread that some state school teachers are really against elitism, and being better than others on moral and ethical grounds and it they exist in the state sector you can see them putting off children from applying to Oxbridge on political grounds which is a shame.

Around here there is more ethnic and religious mixing in the private schools. You pay to get that mix.

I don't think you can blame the league tables for what fivec describes. Some parents have always wanted the best schools. I am sure my parents parents were pleased my parents passed the 11+ and went to good state grammar schools.

Also some areas have never really had very good schools. There are geographic elements to this. Many of the best schools for A levels are in the SE in both state and private sector.

But where's your evidence that state school teachers are putting off students from Oxbridge? You'd have to be mad not to want your students to go there wherever you taught. As I've said it's massive kudos for the school and its teachers. I've got a boy who's got into Cambridge and I'm absolutely delighted for him. And we've got another 4 in as well. They'll all be in the local press and in our prospectus. They'll probably have a great time and come back to tell all our students (and more importantly their parents who hopefully therefore won't make the same kind of assumptions that Xenia does.)

Camelia,how naive you are!! Let me find you some evidence.

Here you go:www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndEvents/archives/2005/LSE_SuttonTrust_repo rt.htm

Xenia no one has been saying people in private schools aren't any good. However you have been peddling prejudices against non privately educated people throughout your posts!

Of course, there have always been areas and whole cities which are more deprived than others and of course this is true of other countries too. But even within these areas and cities there was more social mixing within schools which cover large catchment areas pre league tables and without grammar schools and faith schools this would be greater still and without private schools well. we'd see a massive difference not only to social mobility but to all students opportunities.

You can clearly see the evidence for the effects of league tables in the league tables themslevs which show the popular schools getting better and better and the unpopular worse and worse but also in house prices and white flight and so on

The point about grammar schools and faith schools is that they're not local schools. They're not restricted to cathment areas. They cream off the best students from miles around. Sometimes even across LEAs. And if these students had stayed in schools in their own neighbourhoods they could have made a massive difference to the stats and aspirations of the rest of the students (whilst still doing fine themselves).

Some interesting infor on Swiss schooling

'Since Switzerland has no natural resources, education and knowledge have become very important resources. Therefore Switzerland claims to have one of the world's best education systems.

In Switzerland, most children go to public schools. Private schools usually are expensive and people tend to think that students of private schools probably didn't make it at the public school. '

www.about.ch/education/index.html

So, fivecandles, the Labour Govt has a lot to answer for then

Can't argue with that actually.