Innocent poll: Would you willingly send your DC to a so called poor school for the sake of.....

[fireflytoo]

...improving the standards of that school? There are often threads about all the issues revolving around so called good or bad schools. Many factors are blamed; class sizes, teacher child ratios, the middle class influence, sociological environments etc.

What I would like to know is whether anyone (especially anyone who gets cross at parents who move to good school areas or who pay for tutors etc) would willingly send their DC to a school where they know the DC would not nessecarily (sp?) get the best education....but where the school would benefit from having them there. (Presuming these said DC have supportive parents and the DC are quite capable of doing well.)

Hope I am not stepping on any toes here... I am genuinely interested in this question though.

Though actually 2 people in my class of 19 got full marks in the last A Level exam and 8 people across the course. 1 is not going to apply to Oxbridge because she wants to do a practical kind of course. Journalism I think. Oh, and 5 As and 4 Bs. Sooo mediocre.

I absolutely agree with fivecandles.
When you are from a home where there is lots of space and you have a place to study or just breathe freely it makes a lot of difference to your state of mind.
Also, if you are surrounded by certain influences in every aspect of your environment that makes a difference to your confidence and self belief.
I believe most state school teachers and successful state school students have to work twice as hard to accomplish what is expected of those from priveliged backgrounds.

I had a choice of 2 local schools and sent dd to the one which had not as good a reputation but that felt friendlier and that I felt I would be happier getting involved in myself so in a way I see what the OP is getting at.

Sorry if the discussion has moved on can't face reading 13 pages now!!

So we have a girl who got the absolute top score, as in #1 out of thousands, on one of her AS exams in our school...

and several faculties where they got straight A grades in A2/AS...

and these are not super bright pupils, just a representation of our added value as a small school with individual attention.

OK I know this is a bit different than applying to Oxford however my daughter is currently in reception at a state school and I, along with a few other parents, have just been told by the teacher that whilst she wants to start introducing year one curriculum she is being blocked. So my daughter goes to a state school in special measures and a number of the children in reception are bright, more than able to cope with year 1 work but the head teacher is saying 'No'. Do I have faith that my daughter will get the best education in this school, not. Do I believe that my child will do well anyway. Absolutely. Why is this? Because I will ensure my child will do well. If my child was shipped into a real sink school do I think this would make a difference to the pupils there. No I don't because the difference is me and I work and I am interested in my child. Whilst I would like to help those children whose parents aren't supporting them unfortunately I can't because even the government aren't doing that.

One college at Cambridge still does the 2E matriculation offers: a lad at the dcs school has just got one.

I was at university with a boy who had been a boat boy out of Vietnam, various girls who lived in single parent families in tiny flats, a girl whose sixth form centre had hardly ever taught A level (only O level and CSE retakes) and had a breathtaking rate of truancy, people who were part or full orphaned, had been adopted, girls who had babies while at university, people who arrived in October for the entire year because they were too far from home to go back during the academic year, people who were not welcome at home in vacations or were estranged from their families due to their sexuality, people who had a more than passing acquaintance with illegal substances (no serious crackheads though to my knowledge), people who had recently lost siblings, to name but a few... Why would anyone think that above average intelligence would prevent you from being exposed to normal life?

Does anybody honestly believe that Oxbridge is full of hooray henries whose only care in the world was whether to join daddy's or uncle peregrine's merchant bank when they leave college? My perception is that Exeter, Bristol or Durham may be closer to that mark than Oxbridge...

From the Cambridge University website -Cambridge Special Access Scheme (CSAS) for UK and EU students
If no one from your family and very few people from your school/college have gone on to do a degree, or if your schooling has been disadvantaged for certain reasons, this scheme could help you.

All Colleges support the Cambridge Special Access Scheme (CSAS). You are eligible for the Scheme if either of the following apply:

Very few people from your school/college proceed to higher education AND your family has little or no tradition of studying for a degree.
Your education has been significantly disrupted or disadvantaged through health or personal problems, disability or difficulties with schooling.

I agree with D here "If we want to retain a world class tertiary education system, the way to achieve is not to force everyone into the same level of mediocrity by enforcing a representative intake of lower-achieving people, but to encourage those who are able to achieve their full potential and to dare to achieve. This, in my opinion, is not happening in a great many state schools, either through fear or ignorance of what to expect, and is probably the more salient element in the apparently low proportion of state school educated Oxbridge undergraduates."

Also I don't see what is wrong with elitist higher education which most people aren't bright enough to get into. It would be dire if we had Chairman Moa style identical universities which were identical to each other and there as no way for anyone to go to a better one than anyone else - like giving everyone the same mark in an exam regardless of performance or paying road sweepers the same as doctors as they tried in China for a while. My daughters had friends at Oxbridge and they are a very mixed group of people. 50% I think are from state schools for a start. Clearly we need to help children in homes where no books are read who by age 3 are alreayd well behind others but genes play as big part too not just environment.