I had not meant to start a debate, when referring to those who had come in on contextual offers perhaps needing a bit more handholding. Not those who were given contextual offers, but those entered two grades lower than their peers.
Contextual offers are given to pupils of 40% of schools. Those that gain the lowest average A level results. This includes private schools, or schools with a very good top set but a larger bottom set. (At one point it included the school that the Beckhams sent their children too. By many accounts a nice school with good teaching, but less selective and one which more likely to take teenagers newly arrived from California.) Children from schools on the list must be tempted by Bristol. A "better" University for lower grades.
There are at least three reasons why a child might not achieve stardard grades and be reliant on a reduced grade offer.
- They are less well taught, or perhaps more likely, school aspirations are lower as they are focussed on the needs of the majority in a wide-ability set.
- The child does not put the work in
- The child is well taught and has pt the work in, but the contextual offer is effectively their ceiling.
The first term may be tough for any of these. A friend's daughter got the best UMS of her school in a popular humanities subject: but still a B. She is a bright hard-working girl, but she has arrived at Univesity needing to learn how to structure an essay. The first term was tough. Tutors helped as they could but essays were covered with detailed comment, and it is not easy from going from top of the year to being the one who is struggling. DC both found themselves acting as informal tutors for the maths elements of their courses, and again surprised at some of the gaps. (Though both in turn could do with recipricol help with essay structure.)
If you can help the first group to catch up and the second group to engage, they should be fine. But that first term will be tough and if this is not acknowledged and support not given, a student could well disengage, especially if their living arrangements are equally difficult.
The third group poses a different problem, and observationally this is a bigger issue for somewhere like the LSE where a proportion of hard-working overseas students, may have over-performed at A level. Luckily for a friend of DS', the third year allowed for a good range of non-maths options, a relief after two years of difficult compulsory courses. I hear that tough maths degrees like Cambridge and Warwick have established escape routes to parallel degrees for those who start to stuggle. But students who are finding the step up difficult, and this may be more apparent if your peers came in on higher grades, will need reassurance and guidance.
One of the recommendations in the recent Sutton Trust report
Is that "Universities practicing contextualisation should provide additional support to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those who have been admitted with lower grades, in
recognition of the additional difficulties such students may face."
There are a host of reasons why students without an existing history of MH problems may start to struggle when at University. Academics is one. Starting with a bit of headroom in tems of better grades, better numeric and literacy skills, and perhaps, without wanting to start a whole new debate, the experience and knowledge that comes from taking more than three subjects, makes that first term easier. Which is not to say the others wont catch up, and perhaps then have the advantage of greater familiarity with the library and an established work routine.