To think universities should state separate entry criteria for Indies?

[Wacamole]

DD who is on track for 3A*s at A’level, thought she’d give Oxbridge a go after being encouraged by her teachers. All very excited, doing super curriculars etc. Only just been told she doesn’t meet minimum entry criteria that would be expected from an Indy, which is straight 9s. She doesn’t have straight 9s, she has straight 8s (couple of nines), not only that, the course she wanted to apply for at Cambridge doesn’t require Maths at all, but school has advised they won’t even look at her if she doesn’t do Maths AND Further Maths. She is doing neither. Apparently an EPQ is also mandatory even though none of this is mentioned on Cambridge website.

All this second guessing, reading between the lines has been really confusing.
I have no issue with universities asking for higher entry criteria for students from indies for obvious reasons but wish they would be more transparent and state this on their ‘Entry requirements’ same way they state contextual offers?

The Sutton Trust is a champion of grammars Percy. It's a shared agenda.

Yes to the need to target. Lots of blunt instruments flying around.

Agree, too many blunt instruments and targeting is key. Not all state schools are equal and yet are indistinguishable in Oxbridge college admissions stats. My DD and her two closest Oxford friends are state educated but not by “average” schools. Their secondary education was selective whether by 11+ exam or by their parents being able to afford good food from birth, extracurriculars, tutors or houses in expensive catchment areas or all of these. It doesn’t make sense to simplify the argument to state versus independent.

I think there seem to be various methods between universities to compensate for disadvantage in the UK. I agree the criteria used for any
contextualisation are blunt instruments and may not necessarily bring the desired result.

I think the system if there is one plays well for graduate parents with bright children that live in slightly less advantaged areas. I guess if the school has the scope to teach to a range of levels and there is home support there is no reason for the child not to be a high achiever and could potentially benefit from contextualisation.

When I went to primary school the other children that had similar marks were both from middle class families that happened to live in detached housing in an ex mining community . All three of us went to a city private school (me on an assisted place i.e. government subsidised) and I think all three of us still out at the primary as 'high achievers'. In other areas I think all three of us would have maybe just above average in ability.

I think in these debates the difficulties (or potential difficulties) of being a high achiever at a relatively low achieving school shouldn't be underestimated. There is a lot of peer pressure to fit in with the norm and bullying of academic children out of perhaps a sense of jealousy (or simply not accepting the 'other')

When talking about outreach I think there has to parallel changes in culture in some schools and this is extremely challenging. In our local area there was political resistance to setting up a school supported by a grammar school in the same county as 'it would not fit the educational profile of the average child of my town '. The local 'good ' secondary school is criticised locally for being non-supportive of non academic children and the school ethos is too robust.

How is outreach meant to be successful when schools/communities are resistant to change in school culture/goal setting.

mids went to a small girls' private school in the NE known as the school for the posh duds. I agree it can be hard to be different and it was - hardly anyone went to university for example. I mentioned Oxbridge and my Head said no as I was "too young" - I was a year young at school as academically ahead and went to university aged 17. Thtt is rubbish as Ruth Lawrence went aged 12. No one had ever been to Oxbridge before until my younger silbling went from the same school under a new head. So as well as agreeing with the peer group point above my other point is some private schools are worse than some comprehensives.

i bet no one would ever contexualise my son's B grade in his best A level subject, where he won the school prize and read the subject well a t university but where no one however bright got higher than a B in his year. His B was startling brilliance in the context of that private schools and yet presumably will be regarded as a similar to an E for someone taking a view that private means privilege and better teaching throughout the land. (His year had 100% failure rate for Oxbridge applications too presumably because they are a fee paying school even though they are minority white - he was the only white boy in his class one year and even tough lots of new immigrant families will put 4 adult wages together to put a son through the school. If what you get for that effort is discrimination on grounds of supposed class in effect and because of choices your parents made that is a bit unfair too. Son's friend didn't get the civil service job he wanted this year - he had full scholarship at leading boarding school and is very very bright and parents are definitely working class on just about all markers. I presume the civil service is not prepared to recruit anyone from that school particularly if they are white.

However it is how we handle unfairness and keep trying again and again after failures that is the main thing in life and I have had lots of failures but just bounce back like an optimistic rubber ball again and again.

This is an anecdote and is now a long time ago: I went to grammar school. No one in my year went to Oxbridge. No one in my 2 sisters' years went to Oxbridge. I remember one boy going to Oxford. 2 years above me. Obviously we were dense. Or perhaps no-one cared? Or perhaps no one aimed high? No one suggested my Dsis with AAA at A level in essay subjects (E, RE, H) should try for Oxbridge. We were from a rural commuity within 20 miles of Oxford. How things have changed.

However, well educated parents in deprived area schools can make a lot of difference. They can help with homework. They can look into how Oxbridge applications work. They have probably aspired to a good education themselves and come from a talented family or two. They understand the system and can replace the school careers and university advice if that is lacking. Thier DC will not be friends with the difficult DC who are not wholesome. The DC who miss out tend to have little of this parental input which values education above all else. Certainly no-one to help with homework and point them in the right direction career-wise.

It is also true (from the research I have seen) that the least advantaged at Oxbridge end up in the lowest paid jobs after graduating. So even with a great educaton, they may not want to step up a notch re careers.

@Xenia

A very good philosophy in life.

I think you illustrate well the complexities of contextualisation and the fact there are invariably nuances that such strategies can't cover.

I think the private/state debate is coloured to some extent by the desired diversity of universities and employers and I don't think there is one absolutely obvious 'correct' answer.

I went to a private school in Newcastle on an assisted place scheme (essentially a government funded bursary) otherwise it simply would have been out of my parents' reach (and it was still a stretch). The local comp was poor with low aspirations but I think this was due to general economic decline in the region and actually it was a primary school teacher who suggested the private option. (I don't know if teachers would do that now).

I don't know how life would have turned out of I had been to the comp so my only experience was of private education.

It was suggested I try for Oxbridge in the 6th form and it certainly wasn't on my radar until then. (There weren't too many boat race watchers in my village ....but Newcastle United were revered).

I would think university entry would be a selling point for these schools. My year went to a huge range of unis (50% rg) and a few to Oxbridge. I think in those days the cohort tops were pretty much guaranteed places (these in the days of private schools dominating Oxbridge and fewer applications). Oxbridge rejects canditates were fairly quiet and there were a few reapplications I am sure.

Personally felt our of place socially with the Oxbridge preparation group (if that is a term (wasn't much assistance in reality)) and as I was first to go to university in our family there was a sense of being out of a comfort zone.

@Wacamole

His GCSE's were pre-pandemic, his A levels are this year and therefore will be teacher assessed. His Oxford offer is AAA and he should meet that but who knows this year?

@PresentingPercy

Strange being so close to Oxford and not being a suggestion uni wise. Did both you and your sister apply in the end? A A A back in the day was impressive.

I think it's really interesting that disadvantaged Oxbridge grads earned less than their wealthier counterparts. As the idea of outreach is to increase the proportion of disadvantaged pupils does this mean Oxbridge grads may not go for similar careers as previous years?

I wonder how university careers advice has changed? With the internet to some extent career decisions are based on a wide range of information but good career links are necessary.

It would be interesting to note how background ultimately influences your career decisions.

I suspect background still matters a great deal.
I have two DC at Oxbridge but DH and I do not have professional backgrounds. We cannot provide the sort of connections for opportunities that seem so readily available to many of their peers.

I agree, @ofteninaspin . I come from a long line of relatively brainy underachievers. Even going back to Victorian times my mother’s family were sitting up on high stools Bob Cratchit-style. And it continues today. We are the ones struggling to come up with work experience contacts in yr 11, and thereafter. My parents knew no one useful, and the Pil certainly didn’t.

We are all thoroughly excellent at pub quizzes and thoroughly useless at upward mobility.

Well Irma I'll raise you a striking example of downward mobility on my father's side at least (admittedly that was courtesy of a team effort on the parts of Messrs Stalin and Hitler but still - not yet made up the ground :)). But yes same to the pub quiz thing.

Most of my private school educated children did no y11 work experience either. One did some aged 16 for a week through a friend of a parent at her school. I am not sure even fairly successful people are able to get work experience for their children these days very easily. I am not even sure how I would go about asking - it must be very embarrassing and presumably you get turned down as there are special programs for it nowadays, and that person you asked might never speak to you again.

What people aspire to after university after might be determined by their background. They might be from a family where money does not matter (eg they are very very rich so can pursue art and never earn much or else very religious or not well off and think £30k a year is a small fortune) or they may be badly off and determined the children will pick high paid careers - the number of the majority Asian boys taken to the law, medicine, accountancy, finance and vet etc career stands at my sons' school open day was legendary - here are the four or 5 professional careers - you must pick one kind of thing.

@IrmaFayLear

I agree, *@ofteninaspin* . I come from a long line of relatively brainy underachievers. Even going back to Victorian times my mother’s family were sitting up on high stools Bob Cratchit-style. And it continues today. We are the ones struggling to come up with work experience contacts in yr 11, and thereafter. My parents knew no one useful, and the Pil certainly didn’t.

We are all thoroughly excellent at pub quizzes and thoroughly useless at upward mobility.

Oh god, us too. Best we could have come up with is a retired teacher or two. I’ve been looking at the family tree over lockdown (well, had to find something to talk to a caged MIL about) and we have plenty of carpenters, mill workers and a rather lovely ‘apprentice picture frame maker’ but a sad lack of lawyers or business tycoons.

The problem with work experience now is the paperwork (safeguarding etc) and also it takes people away from their job. My hospital has an outreach program which badgers departments to allow work experience kids in but I doubt it's that's successful.

For medics I guess the reason that care homes now count as work experience is that it is very difficult to shadow a Dr for a day. In days gone by relatives of medics would find this experience relatively easy to come by but obvious this limited diversity.

We have found that it is not that difficult to get work experience or work shadowing programmes for an aspiring medic. We are not a medic family and my DS has successfully applied to study medicine this year. There are lots of work experience options that count and in many ways the less glamorous the better. There are a range of shadowing programmes in hospitals and my DS was able to secure two without any connections.

I'd just like to pop in and say that , for many students , mainly in state schools , the opposite of grade inflation can and did apply what with the algorithm, and especially in those low eprformign schools Oxbridge et al want to target.

Although the algorithm was (rightly all round ) scrapped , lots of schools adhered to a notion of it when awarding grades , in fear of what the algorithm would do (and to appear to be trustworthy and obedient : state schools aren't usually daring or maverick!). Only schools know what the outcome would have been for their students if the algorithm had been applied at GCSE (for example, I know in my GCSE class, seven of the students who got sixes would have been given 5s and 4s by us but that is the unusual way round because reasons!)

Example: my DS is at a previously low performing state comp. He had a sacked music teacher. A lovely new one arrived but too late to rescue the class's GCSEs. The situation had been rumbling on for several years so the school had a woeful track record of results. The school awarded my DS a 5 for music. Actually, that was them trying to help him out and I am quite sure the algorithm would have massively pegged back the entire music cohort's results. The rest of his results are one 9 , some 8s and 7s so the 5 is an outlier. In Spanish, again the school's track record is not great. He was always second in that class. the one 9 they felt able to dole out saw him given an 8. In business, he had the misfortune of having the very brightest children in the school in his class : so two 9s in the group, and he got the 8. This was after predicted grades of 9s and full marks in his mock.

I am not bitter and don't think he is Oxbridge material quite, but I did want to point out that not everyone did well out of CAGs.

My school (different school) certainly didn't have 20 pupils with all 9s. Nowhere near it ; might have been one. Perhaps the prior example given of this was one of the schools which chose to ignore ASCL's advice to bear in mind prior results and the algorithm when deciding grades. I was certainly only 'allowed' to give one 9 in my subject which means two kids who could have got them didn't.

Question for experts : does Oxbridge miss out on brilliant specialists by only looking at those with perfect GCSE scores? I know they have to select somehow but back when I applied I had very mediocre maths type results and top results in arts humanities, so not a perfect profile. DS is (allegedly) on track to get maybe two A*s and and A at A level (best scenario) but he has the lurking 5 and 7s for maths /science and Eng Lang (another rank order issue that one , grrr). I am not saying he is the brilliant specialist but I can well believe there are English students with poor maths outcomes and definitely vice versa. All rounders are not necessarily the very best in each subject are they? And, hwo much are outlying results (like that pesky 5) ignored?

Are leavers destinations ever discussed as a management metric? I guess examination results and OFSTED inspections are the main management drivers for schools. This leads to the question is there motivation for teachers to go 'above and beyond' and provide the advise needed in schools?

Just to answer your question mids : no, not in your ordinary state school. Very little emphasis on this. Occasional discussion of numbers that go of to uni and of those who go to first choice. Sporadic boasting if someone gets into Oxbridge. DS's less high performing school tends to focus on this more. I would aay my school is typical of the 'coasting comp'. And, as you say, bigger fish to fry.

@Piggywaspushed

It sounds like COVID has been a nightmare generally but has it shone a light on our educational system?

I thought one of the ideas of contextualisation was to consider more varied GCSE profiles from given schools when considering interviews/offers?

If that is not the case then can outreach fully work as at lot of schools there won't be those straight 9 profiles or whatever.

Our nearest schools don’t have sixth forms, so ‘leavers’ destinations’ mean the local colleges rather than universities.

@Piggywaspushed

I agree it may be difficult to get systems in place for average comps to accommodate high status university entrance. Do you think improvement can actually be made as exam results to an extent are dependent on the
intake of the school in question? My experience is that for some comprehensives the focus may be necessarily on other goals than oxbridge/rg entry (such as ensuring GCSE pass rates to allow good chances of employment).

I think the brutal question is to what extent schools care about leavers destinations? Is it a teachers job to ensure a pupil academically achieves their potential or is to help guide pupils to higher tariff universities or careers?

Locally the ex-poly markets very heavily in the city and its 'brand' is very much recognised in schools. I think a lot of children aspire to go this university (many of their peers will) independent of whether they are a 'high achiever'.

My daughters are reasonably young so there is plenty of time to gauge academic potential but they are going to go to state school which isn't bad relative to other schools in town but does not have the academic results of private/grammars in the county.

I suppose when you have children there is a little bit of you that assumes they will have similar educational experiences as yourself and my view is that it would be good to give them that opportunity (whether they take up that opportunity or have the ability time will tell)

On these HE threads, MN vastly exaggerates the numbers of pupils getting 9s in the standard ten subjects or so. Because unis started with the new grading system by regarding 8s and 9s together for selection purposes, a lot of people may have conflated the two grades. Straight 9s across the board are very, very unusual. But I mean 9s, not 8s and 9s.

We don't have a list of leavers destinations and I imagine most teachers don't know where their students end up. I only do because it's part of my job. But we have nearly as many doing apprenticeships and going to work as going to Uni so would be a diverse list.
I am so glad @Piggywaspushed explained so well that not everyone 'won' with the algorithm/CAG mess. We did the same and only gave the number of each grade we thought we were allowed (with the odd exception with v small numbers - dance & Latin). We had 2 getting all 9s out of 300.
Work experience has always been difficult to source and as someone said it's the insurance and paperwork that put people off. For vets they need it as it's a requirement for application (lots of it), for medics it just needs to be caring in some way (after school clubs, library reading schemes, old people day centres). All Unis seem to like part time jobs as it shows you can get good grades while working. And have people skills, good communication and resilience.
Equality of opportunity would be amazing but we have students who just want to leave school and start work. Formal education is not for everyone.

@piggywaspushed - I think the odd duff grade at GCSE for Oxbridge is ok, but a raft of top GCSEs is indicative of a good brain.

There was a boy in ds’s year who left to be home schooled and was heading to university at 13 because he was a Maths genius. He still had to sit other GCSEs before he was able to be admitted. I suppose they don’t regard one-trick ponies as necessarily “clever” - just that they have thrown their all at only one subject, unlike the common herd having to mess about with PE and assembly and social studies etc etc.

Also a girl on the student room was weeping and wailing about an Oxbridge rejection in spite of her perceived excellence at her chosen subject. It then turned out she had no MFL GCSE and poor grades in other things.

Different at A Level of course when it is possible to throw off sciences/humanities. Although arguably this is still too early for someone - especially someone purporting to be a high flier - to narrow down.

Hmmmm... I suppose I think that high flier may fly high in some subjects and not others. I am a classic example of this : exam results got better as I narrowed down to specialisms. I wouldn't get a sniff at Oxbridge nowadays because I am a bit crap at maths.

mids , I guess most state schools focus on meeting target grades and progress 8 , which should push all up but masks poor performance at KS2 as a factor which builds in early lack of aspiration (luckily my DS2 is v hard working so paid little heed to targets). I know if a student announced they were going to apply to Cambridge they would get support (not much mind!) but I wouldn't say students' destination choices are scrutinised at all. Students choosing vocational type degrees often seem to research more thoroughly and know what courses are best for them,

DS's school is better than mine at all this : partly because it gets pestered more by unis (especially Birmingham) . His school is 'contextual' for some unis and not others which is a bit frustrating. Part of that is by virtue of them having two separate 'schools' : one for years 9 -11 and a separate sixth form, inspected separately , but actually the same school really!

I don't think it is necessarily about where the teachers went to school/uni limiting aspiration (it is definitely not true btw that 'most' teachers come from working class backgrounds! A recent survey showed teachers to be solidly middle class) : I think it is more lack of funding / time / priority for really thorough and expert advice for sixth formers. It is also quite awkward as a teacher when someone tells you they want to go to the local bottom of league table uni : it isn't an easy conversation!