Year 12 #2: Carols, commutes & a few stocking fillers

[Stickerrocks]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/further_education/3410431-year-12-1-gcses-are-sooo-last-year

Nice to see you, Terf.

The school I work at sends around 20% to Oxbridge/Harvard but is too small to register on that list. DS3's school sends maybe 3 or 4. It's not really a surprising list, but disappointing.

DS3 has only had 'minimum target grades' so far which were quite low and he as already exceeded them in maths and FM on his first grade card. It's still too early to tell unless they've done quite a few topic tests for maths/science type subjects. For humanities and arts, they'll make lots of progress over the 2 years, hopefully. It would be nice to know where to aim for, though.

We havn't had a report yet. Parents Evening is in January.

Did they actually list the schools on that list? If so can somebody share a link?

Counting days down to end of term. This week is not your typical week with various Xmas events on during school timetable.

eaglefly from the BBC website:

Westminster School, London (independent) - an average of 70-80 pupils each year have been offered places at Oxford and Cambridge in the last five years, the school says.

Eton College, Berkshire (independent) - in 2014, 82 students were accepted to Oxbridge. The following year 68 were accepted.

Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge (state sixth form college) - an average 60 pupils receive Oxbridge offers, the school says.

St Paul's School, London (independent) - 53 students went to Oxbridge in 2016 and 41 in 2015

Peter Symonds College, Hampshire (state sixth form college) - an average of 48 students received offers from Oxbridge over the past three years.

St Paul's Girls' School, London (independent) - an average of 45 students went to Oxbridge each year between 2015 and 2017

King's College School, London (Wimbledon?) (independent) - sent 48 students to Oxbridge in 2017

Magdalen College School, Oxford (independent) - 44 students went to Oxbridge in 2018

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46470838

They are listed halfway down.

You beat me to it by 10 seconds!

Thanks for sharing. I completely missed this and only caught some summary news tidbits. DDs School has been on various lists in the past but not this one.

EllenJane We did half each! You gave the link to the story and I cut and pasted the school names.

I'd never heard of PS before that report. I looked it up though and its in Winchester. Others on the thread seem to know it though?

I've heard of Hills though (I know someone who went there and is now at Cambridge). It is the one where a large % of the students are the DC of university lecturers and professors, isn't it? So, the Cambridge admission process should not be a mystery to them!

I think I'm more surprised ta some of the names not on that list. Harrow, for example.

Although the article is worded in such a way that the reporter has dug out that these are the schools that have high entrants but these are not necessarily the 8 - I thought the Sutton trust had kept it anonymous.

You are right, the Sutton Trust didn't publish the names but I guess the BBC reporter looked up the same data.

what they fail to report is the no of dc in those schools with multiple A star predictions at A level and multiple 9 s at GCSE. Hence why st pauls and Winchester are on the list and not harrow. Also PS and hills road get there by size - take in 2000 students so by sheer weight numbers they are going to have a fair number with all a star predictions, What would be far more telling and informative would be the percentage of dc with a star predictions at those schools that apply/get offers vs those with same gcses and a level predictions at other schools. Did that make sense. I'm guessing there would still be some disparity though not as great - which is down to raising aspirations and support.

doh Westminster not winchester

The report is actually focusing on the fact that these 8 account for approximately 400 places at Oxbridge each year, whereas another 3000 6th forms fill less than 400 places each year between them all. It's the fact that these 8 are geared up to send students because they always send students and understand the process, whereas A.N.Other College may only get 1 to Oxbridge every 10 years so they don't know how to play the system of deadlines etc.

Terf i think we established we live quite close to each other and our DC go to 6th Forms about 250 metres apart. My DS is a lifeguard in Cambridge but gets £8.50 a hour. Not sure whether that would be convenient to home for shifts at all.

My DS had quite a few of his friends from school go along the road to where your DS so spends a lot of time up there too and at the Light area. I suspect the staff at your son's 6th Form assume he goes there too!!

The report is saying its due to the support and the fact they are geared up etc but what we don't know is how much is down to the shear no of high achieving students they take in (Westminster/st pauls etc), the size of the college (PS) and how much is down to the application support and knowing the system etc. I guess they all play a part.

what we need is a few more Michelle Obama s and Teach first graduates going in to schools and persuading dc to raise their aspirations

Don't forget as well that at a college like Peter Symonds 98% of the students don't go to Oxbridge, whereas it looks as though around 40% of girls from St Pauls do go to Oxbridge. The state colleges thought to be included on the list certainly don't have a magic ticket to get in, there are only there because of the absolute number of places taken not a %.

X post with Oratory.

Oratory and stick completely agree - I think there are a number of factors and a number of ways to cut the data.

Are we just being too controversial :):)

Changing the subject slightly I've also booked to redo DS s ed psych report in feb. Might be enlightening given the last one was when he was 9. Its needed for post 18 educational support. You can get fairly basic ones done for that but thought we'd redo the full assessment given his profile.

What do they have to do for that then?

The deleted message was from a university student who earned £50k a day or the equivalent just by sitting at a computer who wanted to share her good fortune with the rest of us.

‘Not now Grace’ is the accepted response!

Yes, percentages getting into Oxbridge would give a clearer picture of privilege, although I guess the average private school student will be more able than the average state school student.

For DS2’s DSA he needed a recent doctor’s letter stating he had ASD, but if your needs are not medically diagnosable a recent EP report or equivalent will be necessary. I provided a copy of DS2’s EHCP as well. It would be a good idea to check how recent it needs to be just in case.