Top private schools losing their grip on Oxbridge article

[Nevermakeit]

on.ft.com/3hnt4iG
Interesting article from the FT today . I don't understand why there never seems to be any nuance separating the top private schools which are incredibly hard to get into, and therefore select very bright children, and the more mediocre ones where the main discriminator is the ability to pay the fees...
If I were head of one of the top schools (and not just a parent!), this is what I would be arguing, that the children are not simply hothoused (though of course they undoubtedly are), but they were exceptional to begin with!! Yet, they never seem to put this across (either in the media or to the Oxbridge colleges themselves, where they supposedly have such great relationships), and agree to be lumped together with all the other private schools.
I just don't understand it, especially as then they could get their kids in more 'under the radar' , as at the national level, the state school intake would still be looking good....
What do others think?

Henrietta Barnett is a bit of a red herring as a state school on here. Just saying. Despite the welcome rise in state school numbers, the socio-economic diversity of Oxbridge remains a long way off representative.

I went to Oxford from a fairly normal demographically but high up in the league tables comp. During sixth form I studied two instruments to mediocre level, was in the school orchestra and choir, ran a junior drama group, tutored, had two paid jobs (working all day on Saturdays and weekday evenings), volunteered at the local hospital weekly and at fundraising events, and looked after myself at home as there wasn’t really anyone else to do it, including cooking my own meals. So I did have a few distractions from my studies. I also did A level Latin though.

It does sound rather tin-eared to say that private extra-curricular activities are some hindrance to children performing well in exams.

Sorry, I was trigger-fingered there on the message posting. I had meant to add that I’m not sure we can say that distractions that ‘develop the kids as people’ as someone posted up thread even up with children in failing schools who may have a string of supply teachers, and/or are being taught A level by teachers outside their specialisms, in large classes, with wildly mixed ability, who may just about cover the syllabus, who have to entirely stretch themselves above and beyond the course with no support from school, who may have poor facilities for practical subjects, and no idea how to even go about applying for Oxford or Cambridge.

"Henrietta Barnett is a bit of a red herring as a state school on here. Just saying. Despite the welcome rise in state school numbers, the socio-economic diversity of Oxbridge remains a long way off representative'

Nail on head here. The vast majority of state schools are ordinary comprehensives with intakes from a wide range of socio economic backgrounds which are tackling all the problems that might bring. My own DC went to such a school. it is in no way comparable to HB or state grammars or the likes of Hills Road in Cambridge. Yet the figures are all lumped together and we're made to feel grateful that things appear to be changing when in reality they may not be for the likes of students at my DC's former comp. And I have no personal axe to grind because one of mine went to Cambridge and the other to Durham and thence somewhere more prestigious for Post grad study. They were the lucky ones whose parents happened to be MC and knew a few more ropes! Plenty of their contemporaries could and should have had a shot. I see this as Society's loss since we may not see that talent seep through to important places.

Henrietta B in the state sector and North London Collegiate and Eton in the private sector are very very similar red herrings. If we picked say Aldenham, Rickmansworth Masonic and Millfield say in the private sector and a regular comp in their areas that might be a better comparison. Anyway I find these comparisons too hard to do.

The bottom line is at present both sectors and comps v grammars both can get pupils into Oxbridge but in all sectors it remains as ever a bit of a lottery. I do not think it has gone too far in a major way to mean total unfairness but we need to watch the quality of those emerging and view of employers and others on graduation so see if standards are going up if there is now a wider pool or going down if positive discrimination against those not quite up to it is happening - good to monitor both and I have no evidence either applies. I am neutral on this as a non Oxbridge private school person.

Except @Xenia, in a game of pure numbers it's state pupils who are vastly wrongly-represented.

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I'm unconvinced that it's much of a lottery. If it is, then all those involved in the admissions process at both universities are wasting vast amounts of their own time.

There is no doubt it’s a lottery with so much over subscription and so much dependent on the individuals doing the interviewing can it be anything but . However Oxbridge have done more than most to mitigate the element of randomness.

That said I think it’s a myth that they are looking for the brightest, they have to be both bright and receptive to a very particular style of teaching and crucially they need to be resourceful and resilient .

It’s also a myth propagated on mumsney that all independent school parents care about is Oxbridge. It’s simply not true, of course there are a few but most just want their children to be happy, and to be honest I know more unhappy dc at Oxbridge than at any other universities . It was the thing that most worried me when dd applied, yes of course there are lots that love it but there are also lots who find the pressure overwhelming and independent school parents are just as aware of this as any other parents .

@GlencoraP you're right about style
of teaching. And that's something that's important at interview.. that comp pupils aren't aware of it because their schools haven't prepared them. It comes as a surprise to them that the teaching style is collaborative and combative and many wilt under that surprise.
And I'm not blaming the schools - they have such a weight of other stuff to get through that frankly coaching their top students in something that is the icing on the cake is irrelevant (when those candidates will do the business with exam grades anyway.

[quote Sunnyfreezesushi]@goodbyestranger - well more mediocre private school kids shouldn’t really get into Oxbridge anyway- I am sure some mediocre kids do get in though with all the tutoring going on and no assessment is foolproof.

From my limited personal experience my friends with kids at state grammars push their kids far more than those at independents. Take Eton College - most parents don’t have much control over what their kids are doing term time anyway and it is a huge place and not exactly spoon fed, rather the opposite. Our local superselective is more exam and grade focussed.[/quote]
Totally agree with the second paragraph here. The independants that I have experience of are surprisingly (and disappointingly) non pushy (I would even say non ambitious)...Hiding behind the 'well rounded individual' blurb - whereas some of the state schools were clearly more ambitious, and more focused.

Please don't attribute the second paragraph to me. This is what I wrote about Eton/ state selectives, which is rather different:

The parents of Etonians just in this village have been far, far, far, far more intrusive with their sons' education than I ever was with my own DC at the superselective grammar. I was astonished at how involved they were, given the fact of boarding and the fees.

That said, plenty of parents at the grammar were indeed incredibly controlling and pushy. I was by no means the exception though. In each cohort I would say that there were about four sets of parents who were completely batshit about homework/ coursework/ GCSE and A level choices etc, and the rest were pretty evenly divided between relatively pushy and normal. Obviously the school knows very well who the batshit parents are and does its best to calm them down, but not often with success.

Parents at schools such as Westminster/ St Paul's/ Magdalen College School are overwhelmingly incredibly competitive on the child attainment front. I would say that in schools such as those the general thrust is for a quite radical level of pushiness.

We flirted with the idea of private for our two and every brochure we saw (we're old - this was around 2005) trumpeted Oxbridge and med school success rates. So the schools themselves (Hampton Boys etc) are certainly selling this to parents.
In the end we felt uncomfortable with the whole private thing. Abs felt our DC would be ok without. Fortunately we were right.

I can safely say no parents at my DC's comp were pushy! In fact the level of Ed attainment generally for parents was low so they simply didn't know what was available for their occasionally bright kids.
We had to rein back our inner SW London pushy parent when we moved out!

I find the very high level pushiness factor too much.

I haven’t really encountered it beyond the odd set of tutoring but I’m sure it can go higher than that.

But it’s the well rounded individual stuff which is important. No one ever employed someone because they had 11 GCSEs rather than 10. They employ them because they are articulate, a good team player, a good motivator, flexible and adaptable, punctual etc

I wanted my dc to take very few exams which is why they eventually went to an independent school . I wanted them to develop their critical thinking skills, learn how to debate, discuss and persuade and have the time within their day to develop wider interests because that’s what will enable them to make the best of their talents ( and I have dc at both ends of the academic spectrum) We have encouraged the dc with SEN to develop as widely as possible , so yes he had to take his maths gCSE 4 times but he was a school council member , did Dof E , volunteers , plays an instrument etc etc . He is good in interview and now works in the NHS very successfully . It’s the whole person they employed not the frankly eclectic exam results .

Yet the figures are all lumped together and we're made to feel grateful that things appear to be changing when in reality they may not be for the likes of students at my DC's former comp.

This isn't true anymore. The target groups are the more disadvantaged, as identified by post code and this is where all the recent improvement is, not kids from high performing state schools in affluent areas. See stats here: www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/undergraduate-students/current/disadvantage

I'm unconvinced that it's much of a lottery. If it is, then all those involved in the admissions process at both universities are wasting vast amounts of their own time.

It's a bit of both. We do our best, but it can never be a perfect process and there is inevitably some randomness at play as well.

Glencora same here. I never felt i was buying exam results or expecting or wanting them to try for Oxbridge although I would not have stopped them had any of my 5 wanted to have a go.

I wanted my dc to take very few exams which is why they eventually went to an independent school

Do indies do fewer exams than state then? (Do they do fewer GCSEs or max 3 A levels or do they miss some exams out altogether?)

At my dc school it’s 10 standard at GCSE and you don’t choose until end of year 9 so you do a full breadth of curriculum until the final push, no three year GCSEs where you are bored to tears by the end. Ds actually did Additional Maths at GCSE so that made 11 but there was no pressure to do it.

Usually it’s 3 A levels plus an EPQ , 4 if you are doing further maths . They do general studies and critical thinking but don’t take the exams as ‘why would you’ much better to coach the local primary school at hockey or do drama/music/photography or an extra language for fun , young enterprise .etc

Our local comprehensive makes the ‘academic stream’ take a minimum of 12 GCSE ( this was a couple of years ago pre pandemic) plus half GCSEs in this and that to make up the numbers . They also have to do four A levels minimum plus all sorts of exams in general studies, critical thinking, European driving licence etc because ‘points win prizes ‘ that’s how they push themselves up the league tables and also I appreciate there are funding issues with subjects which don’t lead to an exam. In my opinion exams are the biproduct of education not the purpose, they shouldn’t be even relevant until year 10 and they shouldn’t crowd out the acquisition of more practical skills.

Gosh @GlencoraP I can see why you went private, your local state school sounds bonkers. I have some sympathy with doing more GCSEs over 3 years as a different way of keeping the curriculum broad (ie it narrows a year earlier but not by as much). But I can't see any advantage in making everyone do 4 A levels, that's ridiculous.

It does very well in the league tables, but I don’t measure a good education by pieces of paper and they are hopeless for SEN , can’t get rid of them fast enough, unless of course they come with finding 🙁

Amazing how different each school's approach can be, and that most have very little say in where they end up. Mind boggling really when you think about what is at stake

Look, if Oxbridge are starting to take the student's background into account when making offers then that's a good thing. A child who's predicted 3 A* at many state comps is achieving far more than a child predicted the same grades at a private school. Even a super-selective grammar, since class sizes are much larger than in a private school.

I'm sure your DS is bright, but he's also very privileged. He'll do fine no matter where he goes to university, like most kids at private schools. Better that more places go to bright state school kids, at the very least in proportion to the percentages of kids who go to private/state schools. At the moment it's biased towards private schools.

Also - just because private schools are selective, doesn't mean they're automatically full of the brightest kids - it's only the brightest kids of the small percentage of parents who can afford to send their DC. Not terribly difficult.