Oxford open day

[Lovemusic33]

Hi, hope I’m posting in the right place.
My dd has been asked to go to oxford open day next week with several other students. Dd is in only in year ten (sitting GCSE next year) and has Aspergers, most of the other students who are attending at six form students. Dd is very bright and predicted mainly 8’s and 9’s in GCSE so her teacher feels it would be good for her to join them for the open day just to get an idea of where she could go in a few years. She’s very excited about going. I have just received a letter from the school asking dd to pick 3 subjects so she can attend talks on those subjects. I’m now worried that she will be left to attend these talks on her own. Should I be asking her teacher if he plans on staying with her? Her Aspergers can cause anxiety and disorientation.

Has anyone else’s child attended? Is it pretty easy to navigate?

Or rather, the average A* tally for the typical successful Oxford applicant.

Love so you have even less reason to worry then as your DD doesn't have burden of Colyton, Exeter Maths School or Mount Kelly to put on their UCAS form!

I would echo that an open day aimed at Year 12s is not the best environment for a year 10, in fact with such a busy environment and pressure on numbers it is slightly irksome to have additional numbers there for whom the day is not targeted at with such pressure on getting into talks (and yes to additional parents in subject talks and some people seem to take the whole family for the day out...)
My son was taken in Year 10 on an aspirational visit to Oxford which was organised by his (non selective state comprehensive) school at an alternative time. We are attending the open day on Wednesday, my DS theoretically has the GCSE grades and predicted A levels grades to apply and is passionate about his subject of choice, but he is taking it as a “throwing your hat into the ring experience”, if you don’t apply you definitely won’t get in, but even to get to interview or offer stage is an achievement and a valuable process to go through in itself!

Devondoggydaycare there are also obviously the Plymouth and Torbay grammars, Exteter School and all the Taunton independents which would count as privileged. I'm not clear why there would be any issue for an applicant with having attended the Exeter Maths School especially since by definition their GCSEs would have been taken elsewhere.

You referred to those attending the "good to very good grammars" as having a privileged label and EMS, by its very nature, is a selective state school with an exceptionally large catchment area, so it meets your description perfectly. I doubt if OP's DD will apply there for sixth form as it has such a narrow focus and it sounds as though her DD would not thrive if she had to take English as a 4th subject elsewhere. Therefore I was fairly safe in my assumption.

Subtleties? Could you be more patronising?

It's a sixth form college Devondoggy. It has bugger all to do with GCSEs (in response to your statement).

No, I probably couldn't be more patronising (in answer to your question).

But I've moved on - I'm trying to work out where on earth in the SW there's a very small state secondary school which also has a sixth form. All credit to it for managing its finances on that basis, especially with a poor Ofsted report. It sounds very unusual - must have an absolute magician running the business side of the show.

Love take a look at the outreach activities which Oxford runs in conjunction with the Sutton Trust. As you say your DD's current school is in a bit of a pickle, she may be eligible for some of their programmes aimed at year 10 & 11 students. They may be a little less frantic.

Good without giving away what school my daughter goes too, the 6 form is joint with another near by school (both schools are too small for their own 6 form), students have to travel between the 2 schools for different subjects. We will be looking at other 6 forms but dd ideally wants to stay at her school, I’m sure she will be advised what to do depending on what A levels she takes. At the moment A level English will be her first choice but she plans on taking 4 A levels if she can.

I have tried to move her from her school but she refuses, we looked into scholarships and the end of primary but dd didn’t want to go to private school. Due to her having Aspergers we chose a small state school led by dd’s choice. She’s doing great so I don’t really regret the decision.

Lovemusic33 I see - makes sense now. All credit to the teacher trying to encourage your DD - he shouldn't have to pay himself though, that's shocking.

If she's excited to go it would be a real shame not to at such short notice but if I were you I'd print off a map of Oxford (if you haven't already) and point her in the direction of some of the colleges with large gardens such as Magdalen or Worcester so that she can walk around in a degree of peace and get away from the hordes. The University Parks are a lovely oasis too. If she doesn't make it into an English session then nothing much lost since she's so young. If she does, that's fine too. Wandering has a merit all of it's own though, especially in this heat!

I'm trying to work out where on earth in the SW there's a very small state secondary school which also has a sixth form.

Westminster certainly runs a consortium system which allows local sixth forms to share resources.. It means that pupils across the borough are able to access a good range of subjects including languages and classics, without having to move away from the school they know. It seems to work well and is popular. I would be surprised if it were unique.

In our area Needmoresleep the experiment has been tried and flopped due to the distances/ travel time involved. A rural issue. Not everything translates from urban to rural.

Yes, but there are plenty of urban areas in the South East and the consortium approach seems to work better for academic 16 year olds than sixth form colleges, which have to offer a wide range of courses to a wide range of ages and abilities. I know about a decade back Lambeth reversed its policy of only having schools up to 16+ partly because vulnerable inner city children needed more pastoral support than a multi site FE college could provide.

I assume that in rural areas it is easier to have a single big sixth form provision like Peter Symonds in Hampshire and bus kids in. But for many, the option of staying in your existing school with all the prefect etc opportunities, is attractive.

Indeed that's why so many sixth forms are folding.

Cross post. It's a good idea in principle but there are major logistical problems if there's no public transport or very restricted public transport between one school and its partner, as in our immediate area.

It is also not unknown for some consortium subjects to be offered by private schools. Things like classics or less popular modern languages, where the private school benefits from a fuller classroom and the state school is able to offer a wider choice. Though not always problem free. There was a MN thread a year or so back complaining about classes on a Saturday morning.

Or reducing the choice of subjects. DD stayed at her school for 6th form, but she wanted to study popular subjects. Anyone wanting to do music, drama or any other less popular subject went to the 6th form college in town or to the other (extremely highly regarded) 6th form college 20 miles away.

My mistake. It's 17 miles away - a 50 minute train journey and a half hour walk.

Needmoresleep it would take one hour and forty minutes one way for pupils at our school to get to the nearest independent for eg classics provision by public transport. And then the same amount of time travelling back. And that's even without factoring in bus times which don't correspond to lesson times. It really is not feasible for a lot of us, however good the idea in theory.

Yes, but there are presumably other parts of the SW that are more urban. Bristol? It is a good idea.

Also increasingly facilities in London schools, both state and private are open to community use. So a newly built local school shares its library with the community, and you can rent classrooms and sports facilities out of hours. Again probably not an issue in rural areas with natural leisure facilities such as beaches or country walks. Maximise the use of community resource, whether teaching or sports facilities, especially in areas with a shortage of facilities and teacher recruitment problems has real benefits. I also believe that private schools doing the same yields more community benefit that offering the occasional bursary.

Certainly, getting back to the topic, in lower demand subjects not often offered within the state system, it provides Oxbridge with a wider recruitment pool.

I'm not sure that anyone needs convincing about the benefits. I suppose one issue to think about as well is the relative ability of the pupils in question - you shouldn't have a major mismatch.

Yes but with higher numbers you can more easily differentiate. I understand that some of the opportunities within private schools are limited by school report and GCSE grade, and assume some of the state ones will be as well. However the conditions are unlikely to be any more onerous than those demanded of their own pupils.

The advantage London and other urban centres will have is that there are plenty of FE options for the less academic, so there is scope to tailor some provision to the more able. As well as school sixth forms, including the established grammar schools on London's periphery, some of the new sixth form colleges are getting some very good results indeed, including significant numbers of Oxbridge offers. It always seemed to be that the way you improved Oxbridge access was to focus on ensuring schools provided suitable pathways. This seems to be happening.

Needmoresleep I'm happy to PM you my location if it bothers you that much, I just don’t want to put myself or dd on here. We are quite rural, the school is in a very small town as is the other school 6th form is joint with. We are actually surrounded by several really good private schools.

Early days, as she hasn't even sat her GCSE's yet, but picking up on the *she plans to do 4 ALevels", just to say she doesn't need to do that either, even for Oxford. Just a heads up!

Although it’s 4 A levels, it’s only two subjects: English and Maths. Unless Linguistics is a real possibility, History would keep more doors open than English Language I believe.