Despite having the right grades, my child is not applying to Oxbridge because ....

[TalkinPeace]

• she wants to live in self catered accommodation
• she does not like the small sizes of the colleges / social units
• having to go back to college for lunch while doing a lab based degree does not make sense
• the whole gown and formal dinner stuff smacks of coat tails rather than standing on own feet
• she does not fancy fighting through hordes of tourists while moving between buildings
• having a tutor picked by which college they are based in rather than their research specialism seems very odd to her

Also, for what she wants to do, the course at Oxford is not that well balanced
and Cambridge, despite having a fab course was not a place that felt like home when she visited for 2 days.

So she will be putting other Universities on her form and taking a great deal of stress out of this house.

For what its worth, those of her friends I've chatted to are also ruling out Oxbridge in favour of other Unis because of the first four points.

What are other people's reasons for ruling out Oxbridge, despite having the grades?

I was incredibly lucky with my school, more than I realised at the time or for a long time afterwards. This was in a Northern city in the 1970s.

Direct grant school - fee-paying girls' school but about 25% of the intake were on 100% scholarships from the LEA and probably a majority of the rest were on means-tested fees (subsidised by the LEA) which in some cases were almost nothing. Very academically selective. We had some girls who would certainly not have made it through the entrance exam if they hadn't attended the preparatory department for several years and others who wouldn't have got a scholarship if they hadn't gone into the junior school for the last year or two of primary. But mostly we were well above average.

Every single teacher had a degree in the subject she (almost all of them were female) was teaching, except the PE, domestic science, art and music staff who had all attended specialist colleges and had diplomas. Every girl in the school did English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, French, Latin, History, Geography, RE, PE, Art, Music and Domestic Science in the first three years. We all had to do English, Maths, History, Geography, French and at least one science to O level. Almost everybody got 9 O levels at C or above, with the majority managing to get mostly As and Bs.

Out of about 85 in my year, maybe 10 left after O levels, usually to continue with some other form of education elsewhere. We got some very bright girls indeed transferring in for the sixth form. Out of the 85 or so who took A levels, I believe 10 went on to medical school, one to dental school, one to veterinary college and another 10 at least went on to do degrees in Maths, Physics, Astrophysics, Engineering or Chemistry. There would probably have been another 10 or so who went on to Biology or Biochemistry. There were about 10 girls who went on to Oxford or Cambridge (various subjects). Over 80% of the year group went on to university and almost all the rest went to either a polytechnic or a teacher training/art/PE college or to do professional training in nursing, physiotherapy etc etc.

I only grasped years later that by the standards of the time our results were phenomenal.

Me too Gasp0de, although I thought that at my school it was 100% through the 11+ or nothing. The LEA just sent a letter offering me two completely free places to choose from, to two South London GDSTs, and friends at the school seemed to be free too. They were just called 'free places'. In the case of the GDSTs I think it's very arguable that the relative results have declined sharply since the abolition of direct grant. The results of some others have stayed relatively very high - Manchester Grammar for instance. But Manchester Grammar has an extremely well developed and generous scholarship scheme which may well almost precisely replicate direct grant, in terms of numbers. No co-incidence about the results I'm sure.

That sounds amazing. I wish all children have a chance for that quality of education.

I remember the save the direct grant schools campaign in the 1970s - my brother's school had been direct grant. Anyway it became a political issue in the same way the assisted places scheme was and the Sutton Trust's idea of paying to send state school pupils to private schools.

I don't think areas only with comps get worse exam results in the state sector than those that retain grammars and secondary moderns over all. The Sutton Trust examined the data.

The data showed that overall poorer children do worse in areas which retain the grammar/secondary modern system than those which are pretty much comprehensive.

But data also shows that disadvantaged children do significantly better at grammars than their more advantaged peers. Which is why Peter Lampl likes grammars - with the important caveat that the entry tests need to be right, to ensure decent access.

sorry - should have put a 'relatively' in there. Of course in absolute terms they don't always do better.

Indeed, but grammar schools only cater for a minority of the population, and disadvantaged pupils are a minority within that minority.

A few disadvantaged children having more opportunities/doing better doesn't help the majority unfortunately.

I went to a secondary mod as I moved from a comp area age 13. For those of us whose parents moved around the national curriculum is a good thing. I thrived in my secondary mod but was lucky with my excellent science teachers. I had wanted to do languages pre move but the language teachers in my new school were awful. My other 2 sibs failed the 11 plus and are doing well in life as well

But it obviously would if the grammar concept was expanded and spread more evenly christina. I mean there's no point complaining about the status quo if it doesn't work - there's only merit in evaluating and implementing different alternatives.

Grammars were abolished because they did not work.
Until there is an untutorable test and total allowance for kids with late development and differential skill sets there is no place for wide scale grammar schools again.

If you want selection, pay for it.

I didn't need to TP, and it's worked for us.

Incidentally, you completely blanked the point from at least three posters (myself included), who took issue with your lecturing from the comfort of your childhood South Ken pulpit but whose own parents had been properly poor. Perhaps you'd like to comment now?

Also, I'm increasingly concerned that my aunt may have taught you.... Have you named your school on MN?

Also, I never said wide scale. I'm unconvinced about wide scale. Not that I'd be implementing the re-introduction, probably :)

Of course expanding the concept of providing high quality education tailored to the needs and strengths of individual children would improve results!

Can't see there being much political appetite for that, though.

If you want selection, pay for it

By and large, families who are able to pay for selection (by whatever means, including house price/post code) do so. Fiddling with rules doesn't change the general trend. Trying to stamp out selection is a waste of time. The better cause is recognising that selection is a necessary part of academic aspiration and personal development and trying to ensure all pupils are able to select the education that is right for them.

The trouble with insisting that selection needs to be paid for is that more and more , parents do just that.

If what they want is not available in the state system locally, they will go elsewhere.

Which is fine for them. I mean I do not resent having to cough up for what I want. But it is a bit rich to then be lectured for doing so.

I read somewhere or other that a basic ideological problem is trying to equate equality of opportunity with equality of success.

Everyone deserves and equal chance, but it is impossible to achieve equality of outcome. I always despair of "below average" wails about schools - as long as you measure something, of course you're going to get a top and a bottom. Duh.

I also think it's a waste of time and unfair on many pupils to demand academic achievement but I suppose it's inevitable in today's world. In the case of boys, they could leave school asap and know they could earn a decent wage in agriculture (my grandfather employed 50 men in the 1940s to 50s) or a factory.

Rhoda it's the square that can't be circled, isn't it?

Many pupils are not academic, in the sense that they have no aptitude for academic study, nor do they enjoy it at all.

Yet the labour market in the UK now requires academic qualifications for all but the worst paying jobs. Young people used to learn skills on the job. But now these jobs either no longer exist or require a college course, which in turn require GCSEs.

Another change is the requirement of parental engagement. Previous generations of parents were not required to be involved in their DC's education except on a very minimal level (obviously some were, but it wasn't lethal to success if they weren't).

Currently, I think it is very tough for DC to achieve academically without parental support.

molio
My school fees did not go via my household. I was not affluent by any means at all until later in life.

Girls too, Rhoda. I remember speaking years ago to a grandmother up at the playground when our children were little. I suppose she'd have been born in the late 30s. She left school on a Friday (at 15, I think) and started work on the Monday in an office job. In the course of her first week, her dad said he didn't think she should stay as he thought she was being taken advantage of - I think there was one night she was kept back a little after 5pm, so got home slightly late for her tea. So she told them she wasn't coming back and started another job the following week. Changed times!

Yes, the point I was trying to make was that in some ways, opportunities were greater, especially for those who were not academic. And even for those who were, but lacked parental support/money, climbing the tree was eminently possible if you had a decent brain. Then there were the halcyon days of the 60s to 80s (90s?) when there were full grants (and dole in the holidays ) Widening participation simply means everyone's back at square one but with a £30k+ debt.

Hoever some of those low paid jobs which were ten a penny were very low paid such as when middle class people could afford 3 servants with bigger differences between the very bottom and others. The minimum wage (plus the rise of the left from about 1914 to 1950) changed things so there are fewer jobs but they are higher paid and your few pounds a week living home with mother or working as live in servant with half a day off a month.

Well even when I went to university only 15% went (and I didn't get a full grant - I had to depend on my parents' generosity to make it up just like students do today and plenty didn't make it up and plenty don't now) so that left a lot with no such opportunity.

The jobs I'm thinking of are trades really; plumbers, electricians, roofers, caterers, etc.

You learned the skills on the job and ended up with a reasonable living.

Free tuition fees and maintenance grants did open up the possibility of HE for lots of people though Janet.

Though that door's been swinging shut for 20 years now, and its slammimg definitely mean that some extremely academically capable young people aren"t going to university because of the prohibitive debts they'll occur.

Though that door's been swinging shut for 20 years now, and its slammimg definitely mean that some extremely academically capable young people aren"t going to university because of the prohibitive debts they'll occur.

And yet the number of students is still going up year after year. It is hard to argue that significant numbers of students are being put off by the prospect of what is effectively a graduate tax. It is also not clear whether the small minority of students who are having their grants replaced by additional loans will be put off going to university by the increased debt - the amount they pay back each month will be unchanged by the overall increase in debt.