Nadim wading into Oxbrdige entrance debate

[mids2019]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10793175/Thinktank-Oxbridge-discriminating-against-grammar-schools-unfairly-impact-black-pupils.html

DM article here so maybe a bit of bias and the article is a little confused.

I get the impression that our new education Secretary (who is a big fan of grammar schools) has started to notice the diversity policies explicitly stated by Oxbridge in its attempts to take in students from comprehensives/deprived backgrounds.

I noted his dislike of discrimination of any form and I am taking this as a warning to top universities not to engage in activity which may be perceived as positive discrimination.

I understand that if grammar schools seem to be a link to allowing ethnic minorities to gain Oxbrdige places this is a good thing however it would seem not many from grammar schools are truly deprived socially so the situation is complex.

Do you think the government should be involving itself with this vexed issue of leaving to HE leaders.

(I think Nadim's inbox maybe overflowing with a mail's from concerned grammar/independent school parents whose children may not have got their university of choice)

100% all of this.

Non selective state in affluent area of London marsha? Does it have a decent history of Oxbridge success?

Marsha, DD currently at Oxbridge so she and her (state-schooled) friends have been through this. I would say that family background - I am ex-Oxbridge - is significant in terms of familiarity and 'willingness to consider it as being 'for me''.

@Peaseblossum22 I find your experience of sixth form completely different to the local offering. We accept literally anyone to get a bum on a seat. We do offer BTECs and A levels (some A levels have entry requirements).
Surely you can appreciate that an A level Maths class of 5 will probably do better (from the same staring point) than a class of 25+.

The state sector would love to offer the same education as private. I'd argue many state school teachers are 'better' than their private counterparts (better as in make more progress). However the make up of each school is different and private school already implies some privilege whether financial or other.

I do think geographical location is another relevant factor. There are whole counties where there are only tiny numbers of admissions each year - Scotland is also under-represented IIRC, because of the fees issue - and others which are likely to be disproportionately represented. A pupil of the same calibre from e.g. Skelmersdale or a deprived coastal town vs an affluent area of London may have a very different likelihood of application and acceptance, even though both are nominally both from non-selective state schools.

@Walkaround where did I mention scholarships , my point is that the state education system should be funded so that it provides this level of education. Why should independent and grammar school children only get this level of maths teaching.

@ErrolTheDragon yes I do realise how bad the funding is and it’s makes me very angry, I work in school finance .

This is my whole point sixth form education should be funded properly ( as should teacher training do that we have more maths teachers) so that all children who are able can access this level of education, not just those who can access independent and grammar schools .

but this is the responsibility of the government funded state education system and not the universities . This is just the government passing the buck again.

Sorry that last post should be a reply to @Piggywaspushed not @ErrolTheDragon very sorry . On my phone and my hand slipped

I think it looks like our Education Secretary may be alluding to contextualisation of grades with regard to cohort averages as the means the scales are tipped towards state school pupils (?)

I suppose the argument would be that there should be absolute standards for entry independent of school so you are not disadvantaged by being more than Oxbridge capable but being an outstanding school.

So for instance if you were at a highly selective school such as Westminster or SPGS there may be years when you have an exceptional 6th form and it is feasible 60%have the talent to attend Oxbridge at an objective level but if their grades are looked in the context of the cohort then there may be some arguably artificial rejections.

I think the private sector do seem to be increasingly aggrieved in this area and will be putting submissions to the government to reduce any perceived negative bias against the private sector.

it may that private schools may go do more to support struggling schools in future but the quid pro quo may be that they retain a disproportionate number attending elite universities.

The thing is, that is an obviously false argument.

A / A* (or 7 / 8 / 9) is not a grade that a pupil will achieve based on their ability alone. The grade a pupil of similar 'raw ability' will obtain will obtain will be affected by:

• Presence and quality of teacher - state schools may not have the same pool of specialist teachers, especially in MFL, Maths, Music, as private schools do
• Number and nature of class - a private school class of 10 like high ablity pupils is very different from a class of 25 in which the starting GCSE score may range from 4-9
• Home environment - safe, quiet place to sleep and study, computer access, caring responsibilities, nutrition
• Family expectations and educational level - a family where a parent has a Maths degree and works as an accountant will be better placed to support an A-level mathematician than one where the family educational background is very different
• Aspirations and expectations that surround them - family, peers and school

Looking at a student's grades IN THE CONTEXT OF WHERE THEY GOT THEM is surely entirely reasonable??

There will ALWAYS be some randomness in the system - Oxbridge is too small to take every student who, on paper, has the grades and ability to meet the entrance requirements and demands of the course.

Therefore there will ALWAYS be some extremely capable students who are rejected.

The aim of the admissions system should be to remove / mitigate as far as humanly possible any SYSTEMATIC bias / unfairness in the process that means that the student body is consistently unrepresentative of the total cohort of students of the appropriate age / stage of education to apply.

In ANY school, a proportion of the very highest ability students will fail. That is not, and never has been, restricted to highly selective London independents.

@cantkeepawayforever
Some of the things you list have no bearing on the school at all. Parents who speak a MFL will coach their DC. Parents who are Oxbridge educated know what’s needed. DC get the skills needed to do well at interview at home. It’s part of their upbringing. The parents give them wider access to reading around their subject. So much of the gap between school and Oxbridge is made up by parents. Very few professionals who have been educated at the top universities sit back and do nothing.

For the most part FSM pupils in receipt of PP are behind their peers. They clearly need a lot more than a poor school can offer. They need help from birth in lots of cases.

Tizer, I am not quite sure about your point.

A school where the large majority of parents are professionals and graduates, live in an affluent area etc etc will get higher results at a cohort level than parents at a school with very high levels of FSM, low parental education and aspiration.

Thus it does make sense (at a gross level) to look at grades compared to a cohort average, rather than simply absolute grades, when sifting which pupils will be interviewed and perhaps given offers.

I agree that if pupils were randomly allocated to schools such that all schools had an equal socio-economic mix and an equal mix of family backgrounds, variation between schools would depend on the quality of school. However, as that is very far from being the case, with schools with the type of parents you describe in general also obtaining better cohort results, I can't see why taking a child's grades in the context of cohort averages (as well as taking into account e.g. FSM) is sop wrong?

@Peaseblossum22 - I was pointing out that, if contextual data takes into account children on free school meals and children in care, you are not going to find children in care in the private school system, will find at most a vanishingly tiny number who are entitled to free school meals in private schools, and you will not find them in any great number in grammar schools, either. So if any of these children are still getting the A-level grades required for Oxford and Cambridge, then either their state schools are actually phenomenally good, and/or they are truly remarkable people in themselves who do merit the place far more than a privately or grammar school educated student. Moreover, if you look at the other contextual data considered, you will also see that children from these “leafy comps” that posters go on about also have no advantages contextually, if the schools really are highly selective with their sixth form intake and still gets lots of kids into Oxford and Cambridge.

So, who are the state school kids being complained about, really, if they are all obtaining the same high grades, and why the complaints? Either Oxford and Cambridge degrees are being dumbed down or they are not, and if they are not, then in what way is the complaining from the private sector and grammar schools anything other than sour grapes? Either Oxford and Cambridge are maintaining standards and expectations and accurately identifying true talent and potential, or they are not, and the proof of that comes at the end of the process, not before the students have even started.

Of course, on an individual level, rather than overall statistically, you could argue you think your child should at least have got an interview, or that their postcode data unfairly represents them as better off than they actually are, etc, etc, but that applies equally to disgruntled state school applicants as it does to private schools, on an individual level. Overall, the maintenance of high standards of Oxbridge degrees shows no overall unfair bias against the already privileged.

No system is perfect, but from all the current whingeing, you would think the system used to be fair and is now becoming unfair, whereas we all know it was deeply unfair in the past, and the proportion of state educated applicants at Oxford and Cambridge has, as a consequence, been going up for years, without the quality of the degrees at those universities going down - because they still refuse to admit students to their degrees who have not reached the required level.

@cantkeepawayforever

I agree I was just putting forward the argument some may be presenting to the governemnt.

Nadim states that the system should not bias against 'strong performing" schools which I presume means schools which produce students with higher than average A level grades.

the education Secretary seems to be ignoring a lot of the factors you listed by emphasising school performance as a single measure for identifying the nature of student cohorts.

Nadim seems to be of the opinion that there is a bias against these stronger performing shcools. By strong performing I presume he is including selective independent schools.

I don’t disagree with any of that . @Walkaround

my point is it is the government that should be funding state education to enable as many people as possible to reach their potential ( if your school doesn’t offer further maths for example then you have no chance of even applying let alone getting in ) rather than blaming the universities .

SE London, absolutely premium on houses exists in area and parents strive to use the school, if not going for private. But it’s a mixed area and has housing estates which were closer than us so I assume have entry. The school is successful imo at meeting the range of students and getting some to A* levels etc and others different paths.

I don’t know how many go each year but they do have the connection eg the presentation from an Oxbridge representative

As a clueless o/s university student and the opaque system of entry it’s so far been invaluable

Yes, but why does a school not offer Further maths?

I don't agree that this all has to come from change in the state sector which, if it ever did happen, would take years, when unis can accommodate difference through adjustments which are pretty straightforward.

They have a role and responsibility in so called levelling up and seem prepared to do so. The papers are spinning in an anti woke agenda and God knows what Zahawi is up to.

If we take maths out of the picture, recruitment to arts and humanities is just as in need of attention.

@Peaseblossum22 - but the current whinge is not that comprehensive school applicants are not good enough to get into Oxford and Cambridge, it’s that private school and grammar school applicants are all better (in the eyes of said private and grammar schools). That will always be the case in their eyes, because nobody is going to pay for their child to get the same education as a state comprehensive school child, and why put your child through an 11 plus entrance exam if it is not a superior school in some way?

The thing is, a school not offering further Maths could be:

• Because very few students want to take it and/or


• There is a shortage of teachers able to teach it well


• Buildings


• Facilities such as labs, libraries, ICT equipment


• SEN, including 1:1 TA support


• Mental health support


• Pastoral support / practical student support in terms of food, clothes washing, showers as well as links to SS


• Behaviour management, including e.g. ability to refer promptly to PRU or special schools; support from local police


• Covid catch-up


• Supply


• Huge range of qualifications to cater for students of all abilities and future paths


• Languages


• Sciences, especially Physics


• Music (typically small groups)


• Maths in general

To earmark extra funding purely to allow 1 or 2 of the most able to take Further Maths is a luxury many schools cannot possibly afford.

To earmark extra funding purely to allow 1 or 2 of the most able to take Further Maths is a luxury many schools cannot possibly afford.

Oh, and funding Further Maths for these students AS WELL AS funding everything else than needs funding is likely to be prohibitively expensive - especially since many things are not 'newsworthy' or 'high priority' for this government. ('We funded washer / dryers in every school to support children who came into school every day in dirty / the same set of clothes due to family circumstances' is NOT something this government is likely to want to boast about, not to mention 'Oh, we filled the black hole in our supply budgets that our Covid policies created')

I mentioned the Foundation Year earlier. That's an example of bringing together a group of people with the same needs with experts who can help to meet them in a reasonably efficient way. Equally, if every selective independent, as part of their charitable status, was required to loan their best specialist staff to create further maths groups, or teach STEP, or create A level languages groups, on site in every local school, then that would seem to me a more efficient and effective way to resource these than each of the state schools having to pay for their own staff for each of these subjects.

Either Oxford and Cambridge are maintaining standards and expectations and accurately identifying true talent and potential, or they are not, and the proof of that comes at the end of the process, not before the students have even started.

Just to follow on from this very good point by @Walkaround , it's worth reiterating that universities aren't offering more places to state-educated pupils as some sort of favour – they are doing it because they are trying to recognise potential rather than previous achievement.

Does that theory work in practice? I'm not qualified to say, but the data indicates that state-educated pupils go on to do at least as well, if not better, than privately-educated ones with the same A level grades so that would seem to support the theory.

I don'tt hink most private school parents thinks "all better" though. About 25% of my daughters' schools were Oxbridge material and had a go of very very academic private schools. That leaev 75% of us paying fees where the child though they would not be likely to get in as not bright enough or could not be bothered - none of my 5 tried to get in to Oxbridge which was probably the right decision as none was top of the class although all doing fairly well and in a non selective school would have been in the top quarter I would have thought.

@Xenia - “all applicants” is not the same as “all students.” As you say, your children didn’t apply.

And the overwhelming majority of state school students never apply, either.

To respond to an earlier post from @TizerorFizz , when I was an Admissions Tutor in a STEM School at a very good RG university, we did have separate quotas for Home and Overseas intakes.

We constructed these with the University central admissions teams, planning several years ahead. Whenever we had a good Overseas recruiting year there were pressures external to Admissions to
revise the figures upwards, for financial reasons. This did not happen with Home student numbers.

In a rare bad year for Overseas recruiting we would be pressured to accept applicants who did not meet our standards, but for the most part our Overseas applicants were very strong. We seldom if ever accepted weak Home students